Clinical Volunteering

[irishforever182]

I am looking into clinical volunteering experience and my only luck so far at clinics has been in a receptionist position. My local hospital has offered me a volunteer position where you wheel a book cart around to patients and read with them which I will most likely do, but I am unsure if this will count as clinical. I also am considering volunteering at a hospice. Has anyone had any luck volunteering and being able to get patient contact and if so where?

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[Goro]

I am looking into clinical volunteering experience and my only luck so far at clinics has been in a receptionist position. My local hospital has offered me a volunteer position where you wheel a book cart around to patients and read with them which I will most likely do, but I am unsure if this will count as clinical. I also am considering volunteering at a hospice. Has anyone had any luck volunteering and being able to get patient contact and if so where?

If you're interacting with patients, it's clinical.

You don't need to be getting BPs or taking temps in order for your experiences to be clinical.

BTW, not all volunteering needs to be in a hospital. Think hospice, Planned Parenthood, nursing homes, rehab facilities, crisis hotlines, camps for sick children, or clinics.

Some types of volunteer activities are more appealing than others. Volunteering in a nice suburban hospital is all very well and good and all but doesn't show that you're willing to dig in and get your hands dirty in the same way that working with the developmentally disabled (or homeless, the dying, or Alzheimer’s or mentally ill or elderly or ESL or domestic, rural impoverished) does. The uncomfortable situations are the ones that really demonstrate your altruism and get you 'brownie points'. Plus, they frankly teach you more -- they develop your compassion and humanity in ways comfortable situations can't