What do you do when you volunteer at a hospital?

Question

I plan on volunteering this summer and would like to know what tasks the teens complete. Also, what do they ask you at the interview. Lastly, if i want to go into medicine and atten Harvard Med School, do you htink that having 4 years of this on my application will help. Will I get to meet and/or talk to any of the doctors?

Answer 1

I was planning on doing it, but I never got the forms. I read the Orientation Packet and it talks about tons of different things you do. You could work at the gift shop (if they have one), do laundry, stock the vending machines, talk to the patients, sort paperwork, greet people... tons of different stuff. I don't know about an interview. I just went down to the lady that was in charge of the volunteer work and asked about it and she gave me the packet to read and said she would send me the forms to fill out (she couldn't find them).

Answer 2

At the hospital where I volunteer, the list of things that a volunteer can do is two pages long, single spaced.  When I was on the Board of Directors several years ago, there was a program that introduced us to all of the technological facilities that the hospital had to serve the public.

Answer 3

i wish i knew

Answer 4

Call the hospitals in your area and see if they involve volunteers, and then make an appointment with each to go in, fill out the forms, and learn about the different volunteering opportunities. Many of the opportunities have little to do with patients -- as the other poster said, a lot of the tasks relate to staffing the gift shop, helping at the info desk, etc.

I volunteered as a teen at a hospital and made it clear that I wanted only to do things relating to patient care. I took patients to and from the x-ray department. I did not interact with doctors *at all* (in the American health care system, even patients don't interact with doctors all that much).

You might want to also look into volunteering with the American Red Cross, getting all of your emergency response certifications, etc. That would put you much more "on the front lines" when it comes to working with people in need. See http://www.helpindisaster.org/ for more info

Also look into Planned Parenthood or other free clinics.

Be ready to undergo a criminal background check and to provide several references who can attest to your character.

Also look for opportunities at various health/medical-related nonprofits here:

VolunteerMatch, http://www.volunteermatch.org

Idealist, http://www.idealist.org

Change.org, http://www.change.org

CraigsList, http://www.craigslist.com

Network for Good, http://www.networkforgood.org

http://www.1-800-volunteer.org/

ServeNet, http://servenet.org/

Also, contact your local volunteer center; you can find this via the Points of Light Foundation web site,

http://www.pointsoflight.org/centers/

Having extensive experience as a volunteer is always looked on positively by a college or university -- they don't look at hours but, rather, what you learned, what you accomplished, why you did it, how it illustrates your abilities to manage stress and time, and how it might affect you in your studies.