Volunteering at a hospital can help your community and broaden medical school applications, but there are risks to consider such as exposure to infectious diseases and distressing experiences. Contact the hospital to inquire about opportunities and be willing to take on various tasks.
Volunteering at a hospital can be a great way to help your community and find out if you’d like to pursue a career in medicine. Also, it can be an excellent way to broaden applications to different types of medical schools. You can personally benefit from becoming a hospital volunteer as it allows you to interact with people who need assistance.
There are a few things to consider before becoming a hospital volunteer. You need to be aware that working in a hospital can pose a risk to your health. People in hospitals are sick and some have viral illnesses that can be transmitted to workers. Although hospitals make every effort to keep people with viral or other infectious diseases away from other patients and workers, a person’s diagnosis is not always known when he or she enters the hospital. You should be up to date on all necessary vaccinations and understand that working as a hospital volunteer is not risk-free.
In addition, you will come into contact, in certain cases, with experiences that can be deeply saddening, disturbing or distressing. Having good mental health, an excellent support system, and a good tolerance for certain sights such as blood will likely help you a lot in your volunteer experience. Typically, you won’t come into contact with many seriously injured patients, as that’s the job of doctors and nurses. However, from time to time, you can be exposed to some pretty scary things, and seeing him in real life is different than seeing him on television. If you pass out at the sight of blood or vomit when someone else does, you may not be a good hospital volunteer.
Once you’ve thought about these matters and decided to volunteer at a hospital, the next thing to consider is what you would like to do. You can help at an admissions desk, visit patients, do paperwork, or help out in a more hands-on way. Note that you won’t do much in the way of healthcare because you are not trained. Some other ways of serving that are usually reserved for adults are working as a hospital chaplain or as a baby carrier. Chaplaincy may require training and also requires flexibility and religious tolerance. Even if you are Catholic and work in a Catholic hospital, expect many people with different beliefs to come to that hospital.
In the past, teenage volunteers, almost always girls were called candy stripers. This term is no longer used as both boys and girls can work in hospitals. Once you’ve considered what you’d like to do or don’t have a preference, contact the hospital where you’d like to work and ask about volunteer opportunities. Expect to interview for a job and get some training. Occasionally, hospitals work with local secondary schools or Volunteer Centers in order to obtain volunteers – so you should check with them first.
If you work directly with patients, you can do things like running errands, reading aloud, and offering directions to visitors. Hospitals also need people who can receive and direct visitors, or who can help with all the administrative tasks needed to run a hospital. Being cheerful, helpful, and willing to take on all kinds of work is a great way to keep your job and help sick people and their families. Learning organizational skills, good telephone manners, computer skills, and basic office functions can help you if you want to work in an administrative capacity.
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