The process of joining the volunteer team at the hospital

I was surprised how long it took the hospital volunteer auxiliary to get back to me about my application. I turned in applications to both major hospitals in town on March 28th. I never heard from one, and the other finally called me on May 11th to set up an appointment for an interview, 2 weeks later.

Most of the people that work there are little old ladies who want to do something good with their time now that they are retired. I know that some other classmates of mine from last year also volunteer there or other places but I haven't seen anyone wearing the volunteer uniform --- white pants, white close toed shoes, and a blue jacket --- under the age of oh, say 60, yet. I think this actually impressed the CEO at a recent interview I did, that I would do volunteer work that had me hanging out with little old ladies all day (I recently had 2 interviews to be a receptionist at a senior living community, more about that in another blog).

At my interview, the head volunteer lady did most of the talking, telling me about the various rules and regulations, and what to expect. She was dressed in her volunteer uniform (elastic around the bottom of her white pants) and was pretty energetic, talkative, and enthusiastic. She had lots of pins and buttons on her uniform, rewards, I'd guess from all the volunteering she has done. Oh, and she warned me not to sign anything other than... what was it? I'd better check with her. She said the nurses and doctors will sometimes ask the volunteers to be a witness to something on a form, and there are some things it's okay to sign and others it is better to stay away from. She actually had to go be a witness in a court hearing once because she signed something that usually wouldn't be her job to help out with.

My next step was to go for an appointment with the human resources office. There was a large sheaf of papers to fill out and read, with a quiz (no kidding) at the end. The process took about an hour and a half. Then they did a TB test (I'd had one about 8 months ago, but they needed it to be a 2 step test, and I guess I'd had a different kind). And they walked me over to the lab to get blood drawn for titers to check my immunity to various viruses, to see if I needed updated vaccines on anything. That's great, because both the testing and the vaccines, if I need them, are free through their volunteer program, and I will need to do all that anyways once I start nursing school, so it will be good to have it already done at their expense.

While I was filling out my paperwork, there were a couple of nursing students that came in to take care of some stuff for their clinical rotation over the summer. I talked to one of them a little while she was waiting. She's going to a program about an hour south of here, but lives 20 minutes north of here, so she's been commuting about an hour and a half to attend the nursing program down there. She said it was easier to get in there than the school locally, and she was tired of waiting so long. She was glad to be able to do her summer externship closer to home.

The next step in the volunteer sign up process is an all day long orientation, on a Wednesday about 2 weeks from now. I will have to take the day off from work (at my tutoring job) which is frustrating because that's the day I have the fullest schedule. Hopefully I can reschedule some of them to Monday. I will get the results of my lab tests then, and should be able to sign up for shifts soon afterward.

I think it will be a good thing. I hope I don't feel over committed; they require you to volunteer at least 4 hours per week for a year if they are going to go through the process of "hiring" you. It will be too late to get the 200 hours I need for the nursing school application, but I hope that at some point in the future it will help me land a job, having had that experience.