Get ahead by volunteering

Voluntary work may provide opportunities to develop a broad range of skills and interests, but what's out there, and how do we fit it in? Lorna Gibson explains

These days it is simply not good enough for medical students to have achieved high academic grades and excellent clinical skills. We have to show off an extraordinary range of interests and abilities to impress when we are applying for our first house jobs, and it can be difficult to fit everything in, especially during the clinical years of medical school.

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Medical students are expected to show that they have leadership, management, and team working skills and a well rounded personality. Although there is some opportunity to work on these during most medical courses, many students develop such skills through extracurricular activities, such as voluntary work.

Who can I work with?

Opportunities to get involved in voluntary work exist all over the world, and there are bound to be organisations near you who need your help. Charities usually have specific aims and focus on a target group of people whom they help. These groups could be defined by their age, such as children or older people, or by their sex, such as women. They could be defined by their situation, such as people with disabilities, people with addictions, or homeless people.

In addition, medical charities will often focus on one particular condition, such as epilepsy or HIV/AIDS, or a group of conditions, such as heart disease or cancer. Many people feel that they have a connection to a certain charity-perhaps they had a relative affected by a particular illness, or they think a charity does a lot of work in their community. If you would like to do voluntary work, think about your reasons for supporting a particular charity-it will make your volunteering experience more personal.

What can I do?

The next thing to do is find out what opportunities there are to support your charity (for examples see box 1). Many organisations need help with administration. Fundraising work can give your charity much needed cash. Collecting money in the street or doing a sponsored walk need not be long term commitments. Bigger events, such as band nights, take more organisation and need planning well in advance. You will learn about team working, leadership, and time management, as well as ticket sales, publicity and marketing, how to handle the media, and how to pull off a great event. It may be possible for you to arrange your own event from scratch or to get involved with the planning committee of an event that is already in the pipeline.

Working as a befriender can bring great satisfaction and be a lot of fun. You will work with a small group or a single person, helping them with everyday tasks such as shopping and cooking and helping them to get out and about. This type of voluntary work requires longer term commitment, because you will be building up a rapport with the people you are supporting. Patience and good communication skills are important for these types of roles, as is being friendly and sociable.

Some organisations need volunteers for more specific roles. For those of you who would like an experience of the media first hand, get in touch with your local hospital radio station, or find out if a charity near you needs a hand with press releases or writing or taking photographs for their magazine or newsletter. You could be recording audio magazines for the blind or have editorial input into a regular publication.

Some charities offer opportunities to develop specific skills through training courses. In the United Kingdom, the Samaritans train their volunteers in active listening to prepare them for working on a telephone helpline for callers who may be depressed or suicidal. The sessions allow you to learn and practise these skills before taking a call.^w1 You can also apply these skills to your patients, helping them to cope in difficult times. Teaching skills are also valuable in medicine because you will be expected to help teach undergraduates and junior doctors in your future career. Voluntary roles can equip you with some of the skills necessary to plan your teaching, communicate your message clearly, and to pace the work appropriately. Keep an eye out for any opportunities to get involved in teaching or to work on counselling or other communication skills.

Positions are sometimes available on voluntary committees within a charitable organisation or hospital trust, and you may be able to get involved with developing their services and publishing reports. These positions require a regular, long term commitment but provide a great experience and give you the chance to influence decisions affecting the direction of an organisation in your area.

How can I fit it in?

Some volunteering roles, such as befriending or counselling, require you to volunteer for at least six months.^w2 If you are being trained in a specific skill, the organisation has to put in time and valuable resources so they would like you to stick around to give something back. If you are thinking about these sorts of roles, check how long their acceptable minimum commitment could be, in terms of hours a week and in terms of months, such as four hours a week for 12 months. Look realistically at the time you spend on university work and any other commitments, such as societies, travelling, or sports, and see if you can fit the volunteering in comfortably, remembering to leave some time during the week for yourself.

Although long term volunteering will not suit everyone, especially during the busy clinical years, it is possible to volunteer less often or even as a one-off. Providing first aid at local events can help you keep your clinical skills up to date, and you can volunteer for as many events as you want. The British Red Cross provides this service and will give you first aid training.^{w3 w4} Summer festivals start to advertise for volunteer stewards in the spring and are a great way to meet new people, have a lot of fun, see some bands, and help keep the other festival goers happy.

Also look out for residential schemes, such as those run for people with disabilities, which will give you experience of caring full time for physically or mentally disabled people for a week or a fortnight. If you have a few weeks or a couple of months that you can spare, perhaps you could get involved with an overseas disaster relief effort by helping to reconstruct community buildings or giving English lessons in areas of Thailand that were affected by the tsunami.^w5 In addition to giving you some hands-on experience of team work and tremendous satisfaction, relief work can give you a real insight into the problems faced by the community in which you are working and a greater understanding of the immense effort needed to help get that community back on its feet.

For shorter periods of work, keep an eye out for local events run by charities, such as shows or sponsored runs, because they may need stewards or people to help publicise the event. This might take up just one weekend or a couple of weeks of your time. Again, check to see how much time these jobs will take and look realistically at the work you have on already. See if there are likely to be any quieter times of the year, such as a bank holiday or a module with less hours of contact time, so that you can plan your work around it and create a period of free time to fit in some short term volunteering.

Volunteering in my area

The internet is a great resource. A charity might have its own website, which might list new voluntary posts. For volunteering in the UK, www.do-it.org.uk has a great search engine for you to find voluntary posts by area, type of charity, or type of work. Voluntary organisations sometimes advertise in the local paper, and charity shops may display a “volunteers wanted” sign. Flicking through the telephone directory can give you an idea of what is in your area, including local branches of national charities. Check with your local hospital to see if they have any volunteer led patient services, such as information desks, mobile libraries, or befriending services. Your university may have a student led society that runs voluntary projects or that could put you in touch with local organisations.

The benefits of volunteering

Volunteering opens the door to a variety of new experiences, the opportunity to develop new skills, and the chance to show off your personal qualities. You will meet new people from different backgrounds and gain a great sense of satisfaction when you can see the difference that your time and effort has made to the people you are supporting. You may have the chance to develop transferable skills such as time management, leadership, communication, negotiation, organisation, and problem solving, which will be invaluable to you as both a medical student and as a future doctor. Specific skills such as teaching or counselling will be directly applicable to your future career.

Finally, volunteering will give you the chance to show that you are reliable, trustworthy, and responsible, all desirable characteristics of a doctor. You can experience providing care and gain understanding of the problems surrounding the groups you support. If you think that voluntary work is for you, have a look at the organisations in your area and think about the sort of experience you want. This will help you to find a volunteering opportunity that will be of most benefit to your chosen charity-and to you.

Lorna M Gibson, intercalating medical student in neuroscience, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester
Email: s0451276@sms.ed.ac.uk

Competing Interests: None declared

studentBMJ 2007;15:89-132 March ISSN 0966-6494

1. Samaritans. Samaritans - Can you offer us your support? Volunteer training [online]. 2006. Available from: http://www.samaritans.org.uk/support/vol_skills_needed.shtm [cited 12th October 2006]
2. Childline. Volunteer counselling [online]. Available from: http://www.childline.org.uk/volunteercounselling.asp [Cited 12th October 2006].
3. British Red Cross. British Red Cross first aid tips, training and products [online]. 2006. Available from: http://www.redcross.org.uk/standard.asp?id=40542 [cited 12th October 2006]
4. International Committee of the Red Cross. Red Cross and Red Crescent Sites [online]. 2006. Available from: http://www.icrc.org/Web/Eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/info_res_othersites_rc [cited 12th October 2006]
5. Tsunami Volunteer Centre. Helping rebuild lives in Khao Lak, Southern Thailand What we do [online]. Available from: http://www.tsunamivolunteer.net/english/content/view/71/174/ [Cited 16th October 2006]