Hospital interview?

[TecmoFootball]

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I am beginning my pre-med journey and asked a local hospital if they had any volunteering positions available. My goal is to get clinical experience with patients. Their standard process involves an interview after filling out the application.

Yes, I am probably freaking out and making this too much of a big deal. But has anyone ever been interviewed at a hospital for a volunteer position? Is this a normal thing hospitals do?

What kind of questions will they usually ask? What is a good dress code for this? I was thinking business casual (nice slacks and a dress shirt). I feel like wearing a suit/tie would be overdress.

If anyone has thoughts/experiences please let me know!

 

[Ibn Rushd]

Business casual is perfect. They just want to make sure you aren't some sort of psychopath. Just be yourself, no worries.

 

[mattng]

Yea. I wore khaki pants and a polo shirt. The kinds of things they ask me were like why do you want to volunteer here. Tell me about your hobbies, what are you looking to get out of this experience.

It should be very low stress. As long as you check out, you're in. I mean, who wouldn't want free help?

 

[Jemainelover]

Do you have any certificates/degrees? I can't think of any quality patient experience you'd get without one. If you do get something worthwhile without the creds. let me know cause I'm hesitant to pay the $1,000 required so I can wipe butts.

 

[XRanger]

I am also currently volunteering in a hospital and we also had to do interview. Our interview was pretty formal as in everyone was wearing slacks, dress shirt, and tie. Some even wore suit. I guess it depends on the program.

The questions are pretty standards like why do you want volunteer here, tell me about your strenghts/weakness, and sometimes they also ask hypothetical questions like if a patient ask you for a glass of water and on the way of getting the water a nurse stops you and ask you to deliver speciman to the lab, and then another PCA asks you to help her change a patient. How would you respond? like what's your priority in doing the tasks.

As a student volunteer, most of the time you're gonna be assisting the PCA, like feeding patient, changing patient, talking to patient, run errands for nurses, do some busy paperwork.
But in my program, once you volunteer long enough, you can rotate into better departments like ER and Main OR, where you get to shadow doctors, watch some procedures, scrub in during surgeries. Sometimes you get to see the surgeon operating using some advanced technology like the davinci surgical robot. It's pretty cool stuff although I heard there are quiet few people pass out when they first see surgery haha

 

[shaggybill]

Don't worry, it will be very low stress. In my interview, the lady just asked me a few basic questions like why I wanted to do it, for how long, what department, what did I hope to gain from the experience, etc. The rest of the time we just talked about what volunteers do. Wear something nice like a dress shirt and khackis, but don't wear a suit. It's a volunteer position, not a job interview. Just make yourself look like a respectable human being and everything will fall into place.

 

[iduwanna]

Do you have any certificates/degrees? I can't think of any quality patient experience you'd get without one. If you do get something worthwhile without the creds. let me know cause I'm hesitant to pay the $1,000 required so I can wipe butts.

You can wipe my butt for $500.

OP: I'ts not uncommon to interview, but it will be really low-key. Business casual, as you said; no need to wear a tie.

The experience you get is largely up to you. Try to be helpful (they won't ever ask you to wipe a butt or anything close to it), but also have fun and get what you want from it.

 

[DrMattOglesby]

...they won't ever ask you to wipe a butt or anything close to it...

i beg to differ.
I wipe the hospital beds clean after the patient leaves the room. . .and this bed was very close to their butt, separated only by hospital linens and a paper patient gown.