Volunteering Classification Confusion

[klever]

Hello SDN,

I am once again asking for your support. I have found volunteer experiences that can supplement my clinical experience in an area I like - helping the elderly. I have found some in hospice, and in assisted living (specifically for memory care). I know that hospice care usually counts as clinical experience, but what about the assisted living situation? I would just be talking to them and keeping them company, and helping them out a little bit. I would more just listen to them and keep them entertained.

Would both the assisted living and hospice volunteering count as clinical experience? Or just the Hospice volunteering (where I would do the almost same thing, except I would do more catering to the idea that these are their last moments, and generally helping out around the facility more). I feel like they are similar in many ways but classification gets murky. Thank you all.

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[Doctor-S]

Hello SDN,

I am once again asking for your support. I have found volunteer experiences that can supplement my clinical experience in an area I like - helping the elderly. I have found some in hospice, and in assisted living (specifically for memory care). I know that hospice care usually counts as clinical experience, but what about the assisted living situation? I would just be talking to them and keeping them company, and helping them out a little bit. I would more just listen to them and keep them entertained.

Would both the assisted living and hospice volunteering count as clinical experience? Or just the Hospice volunteering (where I would do the almost same thing, except I would do more catering to the idea that these are their last moments, and generally helping out around the facility more). I feel like they are similar in many ways but classification gets murky. Thank you all.

1. Clinical Experience: your hours of direct patient volunteering for hospice "patients" is a clinical experience. They're patients.

2. Non-Clinical Experience: it sounds as if your hours of keeping assisted living "residents" entertained, and keeping them company, and talking and listening to them, is a non-clinical experience. Based on your post, you are not providing direct patient care to residents.

 

[klever]

1. Clinical Experience: your hours of direct patient volunteering for hospice "patients" is a clinical experience. They're patients.

2. Non-Clinical Experience: it sounds as if your hours of keeping assisted living "residents" entertained, and keeping them company, and talking and listening to them, is a non-clinical experience. Based on your post, you are not providing direct patient care to residents.

That's true, thanks. So even though the activity of what I'm actually doing is similar in both, just because in hospice they are "patients" instead of "residents," hospice is clinical and the other is not?

 

[candbgirl]

The people living in an assisted living aren’t classified as patients are they? They are residents . At least that’s what has been my experience. Do you need further clinical experience? Or do you need nonclinical volunteering? Hospice can be a very fulfilling and eye opening experience. But it can also be very hard and sad. It sounds like you don’t want to do hospice. And that’s fine. Not everyone is comfortable working in an end of life situation. But if you need clinical experience and you don’t want to do hospice, there are other real clinical opportunities available. Assisted Living isn’t one of them.

 

[klever]

The people living in an assisted living aren’t classified as patients are they? They are residents . At least that’s what has been my experience. Do you need further clinical experience? Or do you need nonclinical volunteering? Hospice can be a very fulfilling and eye opening experience. But it can also be very hard and sad. It sounds like you don’t want to do hospice. And that’s fine. Not everyone is comfortable working in an end of life situation. But if you need clinical experience and you don’t want to do hospice, there are other real clinical opportunities available. Assisted Living isn’t one of them.

At the moment I need a bit of both clinical and nonclinical. I actually am interested in hospice. So if I were to do both, I could separate them into clinical (hospice - patients) and nonclinical (assisted living - resident)?

 

[GoSpursGo]

That's true, thanks. So even though the activity of what I'm actually doing is similar in both, just because in hospice they are "patients" instead of "residents," hospice is clinical and the other is not?

The entire classification of an activity as “clinical” depends on whether you are interacting with patients. The “what” you are doing matters in terms of how impressive the activity is, but if you aren’t helping patients then it isn’t clinical.

 

[Catalystik]

At the moment I need a bit of both clinical and nonclinical. I actually am interested in hospice. So if I were to do both, I could separate them into clinical (hospice - patients) and nonclinical (assisted living - resident)?

Yes, you can enter them as two separate activities with their separate Categories, dates, total hours, descriptions, and Contacts.