how important is long-term volunteer work for medicine?

hello! I'm a year 12 student currently swamped with 4 A-levels and an EPQ. I've also signed up for/done a lot of super curricular activities (presentations, wider reading, essays, debates, lectures, conferences, etc) and have done 2 weeks work experience in a hospital where I wrote a reflection every day. However, I haven't managed to get long term volunteer work. I've tried signing up for every volunteer event near me but I haven't gotten anything long term. Only a few days here and there helping out with health screening and teaching kids how to read. I've reflected and learnt from these experiences but I know that it can't replace long-term volunteering. Will my lack of long-term volunteering affect my application? I would do anything to study medicine at unis like oxford, edinburgh, etc.

Reply 1

reubenn05

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by linaaa_wong

no it won't harm ur application - what they are looking for at interview is the ability to reflect, as u have done, it's not a tick box exercise to have it long term. for personal statement they will not care either, for the unis u have mentioned, as the ps may be read to check for red flags/to see if it's med focused, but not scored or ranked in any way. also, it's good to not be set on 'top' unis, as uni rankings don't matter for medicine - med is med.