What's the best department to volunteer at in a hospital?

[sexycani]

If you are doing nothing, you aren't doing it correctly.

It isn't doing procedures that is important. It may be just sitting with a delirious patient, or one who is awaiting word on the status of a partner who was traveling in the same vehicle.

Earlier today someone noted that his/her hospital didn't have reading material to distribute to patients who were waiting with nothing to do. I made a suggestion about how a volunteer might meet that need.... see what is being done and what could be done better. Then work to make things better.

Being a volunteer who takes vital signs or draws samples for the lab is not necessarily the ultimate in clinical volunteerism.

I'm just saying that many pre-meds start volunteering at a hospital (ICU, ER, Front Desk) and make the claim they're ready for a career in medicine....
but, i mean, being an MA and doing intake on a patient, conversing with them, or dressing a wound, giving a shot, etc....these are the experiences that (at least for me) really reinforced my interest in med....

i just don't see how both these types of volunteering can be considered "equal"

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[LizzyM]

I'm just saying that many pre-meds start volunteering at a hospital (ICU, ER, Front Desk) and make the claim they're ready for a career in medicine....
but, i mean, being an MA and doing intake on a patient, conversing with them, or dressing a wound, giving a shot, etc....these are the experiences that (at least for me) really reinforced my interest in med....

i just don't see how both these types of volunteering can be considered "equal"

There is a reason why I make reference to "smelling patients". If you've done that and you still want to go into medicine, you are good to go. If you've been within earshot of their rantings and their meanness and ungratefulness and their duplicity, that's even better. No need to dress wounds and give shots. In fact, the time spent learning those skills could be used better doing other things... you are going to learn how to do that stuff in medical school.

 

[music2doc]

A lot of places don't have the liability insurance set up to allow volunteers of any qualification (other than maybe physicians, who would likely not be giving their time through a standard volunteer program) to perform procedures or anything of the like. The volunteer coordinator at a hospital in my area mentioned that no matter what your training, if you are on duty as a volunteer, you cannot directly give medical care. This applied even to medical students that volunteer, as this hospital is connected to a medical school.

This is why those of us with training beyond "Standard First Aid" and "Community CPR" avoid the hospital volunteer sites.

 

[Ladoctora44]

any would be good, but for the most exposure probably ER.

 

[V5RED]

There is a reason why I make reference to "smelling patients". If you've done that and you still want to go into medicine, you are good to go. If you've been within earshot of their rantings and their meanness and ungratefulness and their duplicity, that's even better. No need to dress wounds and give shots. In fact, the time spent learning those skills could be used better doing other things... you are going to learn how to do that stuff in medical school.

That reminds me of one of the things I try to do that I think might be useful.

I ask each patient how they are being treated and when they complain about doctors taking too long to get to them or they say the doctors don't care, I try to assure them that all the doctors/nurses are here because they care. I remind them there are a lot of patients, but the doctors and nurses are doing their best.

Also, the smelling thing I did not get until my last shift. I felt really bad for the patients near the source of the smell.

I do like the suggestion of trying to collect reading materials for the hospital.

 

[NYRN]

Maybe I'm biased, but I think that ER is the best place to volunteer. You will see everything, from newborns to 100+ year old patients, and you can sometimes see how much better they get from the time they arrive until d/c home or transfer to floor/unit.

Procedures are just procedures, don't worry about doing them so much you will get to that when you are in med school. See if you can watch the doctors and nurses, at least getting familiar with simple procedures such as performing EKG's, placing patients on monitors, watching how IV's are placed will be valuable to you.

The most important thing you can do as a volunteer is LISTENING to patients. Many times, that is all they need is someone to listen to them and comfort them. Don't ever underestimate the importance of interacting with patients/families, its just as important as the diagnosing/procedures are. Once you are comfortable with that, you will be so far ahead of your classmates who never made the effort, trust me.

 

[TheMightySmiter]

Some hospitals let volunteers do hearing screening tests for newborns. I did this for a summer and it was awesome! They can be difficult positions to get, though, because they're so popular. And I don't think that should be your only clinical experience, because it's such a specialized group of patients.

I think drug and alcohol detox facilities are great places to volunteer. If you can handle those patients, you can handle any patient.

 

[Soulstice]

I've been a big fan of anything that involves just talking to people. I ruled out surgery as a career a while ago since I don't want to interact with sleeping people (YES, I know there are some surgeries where patients are in varying degrees of wakefulness, but generally speaking). As far as volunteering goes, I like playing with children, or talking to bedridden patients, or wheeling around people in wheelchairs. It's a good glimpse into the life of the patient, and as I see it, you see the humanistic side of healthcare. I figure it's also good to learn how to see morbidity, and how to talk to 'it'.

 

[Disinence2]

ER for sure.

Try to do more observing/shadowing and less "volunteering"

 

[235788]

Lay people call it the ER. It's been that way for 50+ years. About 20 years ago, people working in the field of emergency medicine started calling it the E.D. because "it isn't a room it is a department. "

Don't expect the lay public (and that includes most people on these boards) to use the term E.D., particularly when in lay parlance that is often used as a term referring to impotence (erectile disfunction) thanks to the pharmaceutical firms that needed a new term to make advertisements for their little blue pills more socially acceptable.

Those blue pills are among the top 5 greatest "inventions" ever.

 

[tman5890]

What the heck is a "nursing department"? Nursing IS the clinical care environment. Nursing units include basically every unit in the hospital. If you mean the nursing administration.... Yeah, that'd be the worst place for a pre-med.


For volunteering, I'd suggest an indigent care clinic. Except when I'm working, I keep out of the hospital!

I'm pretty sure it's not nursing administration. The hospital I'll be volunteering at has a list of positions and there are many for nursing labeled under department. That includes nursing-NICU, maternal child, orthopedics, etc.

 

[STAT EKG]

I looked at one of the first five posters and they were a 5+ year member with 36 posts... Then I realized this post was from 2006, then resurrected a tad in 2008, and exhumed yesterday.

I'd agree with the several others that suggested ER... If there's an ER scribe program in your remote vicinity, do it. If there's not... that sounds lucrative to me. If you're around a hospital for long enough (years and years), regardless of what department you're in, you'll get exposure to all departments.

100 clinical hours experience is a joke anyway IMHO, so get a few years and few/several thousand hours in there, maybe get an idea of what you're getting yourself into.

100 hours and forming a concrete idea of what you're getting into? laughable.

 

[NYRN]

I'm pretty sure it's not nursing administration. The hospital I'll be volunteering at has a list of positions and there are many for nursing labeled under department. That includes nursing-NICU, maternal child, orthopedics, etc.

Some hospitals categorize several departments under nursing even if they have nothing to do with us. I think the clerks even have "nursing" somewhere on their badges, and I know when a clerk calls in sick they are reporting to the nursing supervisor 😕

 

[tman5890]

Some hospitals categorize several departments under nursing even if they have nothing to do with us. I think the clerks even have "nursing" somewhere on their badges, and I know when a clerk calls in sick they are reporting to the nursing supervisor 😕

Oh, I see. That makes sense.

 

[MRSAful Fate]

Some hospitals categorize several departments under nursing even if they have nothing to do with us. I think the clerks even have "nursing" somewhere on their badges, and I know when a clerk calls in sick they are reporting to the nursing supervisor 😕

I'm a unit clerk/monitor tech and my position is under "nursing" for some reason at our hospital. We do have volunteers in our nursing office sometimes and it seems like it would be terribly boring - they cart around paperwork and at best get to learn about staffing issues. Pretty sure they don't even get to smell patients.

I volunteered in an ICU and an ED, both for a decent amount of time. The ICU was mostly about helping out visitors (I got to be sometime like an amateur grief councelor). Most of the patients were on vents or generally out of it, so the patient interaction was pretty minimal. It's a slower pace in the ICU so it's easier to talk with doctors and the staff. The ED had a lot more stuff to do and was generally a lot more exciting, but the doctors were busy and much harder to talk to. I am an EMT which probably gave me a little more leeway, but I helped EMS transfer patients, observed all the code trauma/blue's and would get supplies for the trauma surgeon or ED doc, babysit difficult patients, etc. I think the ED is the most interesting pace to volunteer, but an ICU or med/surg unit is a better place to talk with doctors and arrange some shadowing since it's a lot less hectic.