Are my volunteer hours actually worth something?

[leonshi550]

So throughout high school and early on in College, I acquired around 400 hours volunteering for Red Cross. A few of these hours were disaster relief and some miscellaneous work like home safety inspections, but around 315 of them were based in a hospital. The catch is that the bulk of those 315 hours were primarily doing various types of jobs in the hospital pharmacy. I occasionally worked in the hospital outside of the pharmacy for these hours, but not too often.  In my area, Red Cross really needed help in that particular area in the hospital and not really anywhere else. Obviously I have more on my application besides these hours but this was still something I had thought would really help my applications early on in college before really stopping to think about the relevance of it for my field. 

Would these hours even benefit me on my PA application? If I simply described them as having worked 315+ hours volunteering for Red Cross in a hospital, would it sound a little better? 

[Guest HopeToBePAC]

Of course they're worth something...I guess I'm confused as to why they wouldn't be? It really doesn't matter who or what you volunteer for, as long as you can show you were passionate about it. It doesn't even have to be related to the medical field. Regardless, Red Cross volunteering is something I'm sure schools would like, and you can label it as in the hospital. 

[leonshi550]

I'm asking because I've been told volunteer hours need to relate very specifically to the healthcare field you are applying for or are worth next to nothing on an application. So volunteering at a pharmacy, regardless if it is in a hospital or for red cross, would be useful for a pharmacy school application but uesless for applying anywhere else. 

 

[Guest HopeToBePAC]

2 minutes ago, leonshi550 said:

I'm asking because I've been told volunteer hours need to relate very specifically to the healthcare field you are applying for or are worth next to nothing on an application. So volunteering at a pharmacy, regardless if it is in a hospital or for red cross, would be useful for a pharmacy school application but uesless for applying anywhere else. 

 

Not sure who told you that but that's wrong. 

[leonshi550]

This is reassuring to know, thank you!