The mandatory 60 hours of hospital service required of pre-med students at Seoul National University raises questions about whether students can truly feel the meaning of volunteering. He emphasizes that compulsory volunteerism can stifle voluntarism, and that there should be more opportunities for volunteering outside of the hospital to provide a better experience.
Currently, Seoul National University’s medical school requires students to volunteer at least 60 hours in a hospital as part of their pre-med program requirements. This is forcing students to volunteer as a requirement. I thought about whether such compulsory volunteer service can have a good effect on students.
First of all, we need to reflect on the purpose of volunteering. Volunteering is an important activity to foster altruism and gain experience in contributing to society. Especially in medical schools, volunteering plays an important role in developing the mindset of a doctor to empathize and care for patients. However, if it becomes “compulsory,” students are likely to feel compelled to do it just to fulfill the requirements. This can undermine the original purpose of volunteering.
Let’s think about the kind of volunteer service we are doing: we are volunteering at a hospital, but we cannot perform medical service because pre-med students have very little medical knowledge. In other words, we are volunteering at a hospital, but it is not medical service. In this respect, it can be said that there is some difference because it is a patient-facing volunteer program, but the actual work is mostly basic chores and guidance, so it is not much different from volunteering outside the hospital. In fact, the only things I did during my volunteer work at the hospital were giving directions, helping people get prescriptions or receipts, stamping, and washing hair. The only meaningful part of my volunteer time was washing patients’ hair. The situation was not much different for my other friends. Most of their volunteer hours consisted of sitting around and banging their heads. Of course, it’s hard to work all the time during volunteer service, but the fact that there are still few jobs suitable for students in terms of hospital service, and that the hospital often has other volunteers doing the work, makes it harder to do meaningful volunteer service. In this regard, I think it is problematic that the required volunteer hours are limited to hospitals.
It would be more meaningful for students to volunteer outside of hospitals. If pre-med students participate in various volunteer activities in the community instead of hospitals, they will be able to learn social responsibility in a broader perspective. For example, volunteering at a welfare center or working at a center for people with disabilities allows them to meet a variety of people who are not patients and understand their needs. Without medical knowledge, this provides a broader experience than volunteering in a hospital setting.
Next, let’s talk about the compulsory nature of volunteering. In elementary school, middle school, and high school, volunteerism was mandatory before college. This can be a great opportunity and experience for students who are still minors. But as college students, they are now adults. They know what volunteering is, and most of them understand the need for it, so there’s no need to force them to do it like they did when they were underage. Also, as mentioned above, the categories of volunteer work they can do are still the same as they were in high school, so they are just repeating what they did before.
In addition, it’s important to consider the voluntariness of volunteering. Many students start out doing volunteer work because they feel obligated to do so, but if they find it enjoyable and rewarding, they’re more likely to stick with it. However, if students are forced to volunteer, they are more likely to see it as an obligation, which can lead to negative attitudes toward volunteering in the long run. When volunteering is no longer mandatory, students may become passive about volunteering.
The question of sustainability of volunteerism is a little different if you remove compulsion and encourage voluntary participation. For example, if a school provides students with a variety of volunteer opportunities and allows them to participate naturally, attitudes towards volunteering are likely to change positively. The sense of accomplishment that pre-med students get from volunteering can be an important motivator for them to become doctors in the future.
In conclusion, the current 60-hour requirement presents a number of challenges. It is important to find ways to provide students with a beneficial experience without compromising the essence of volunteerism. Reducing the number of hours spent in hospitals and providing a variety of volunteer opportunities so that students can participate on a voluntary basis would be preferable. The goal of medical school, in particular, is not just to build medical knowledge, but also to develop doctors who understand and care for patients and society, so the value of volunteering is much deeper when it is voluntary rather than mandatory.
