[NSFA08]

After reading many of your posts, I thought it was interesting that a hospital that I just registered for an Volunteer Orientation in has volunteer opportunities in the PACU. Do any of you work with volunteers in your dept? If so, what do the volunteers do? I suppose I will find out more details in the volunteer meeting, but I'm interested in hearing your feedback -- particularly if you think it's a good idea liability-wise, and also from the p.o.v. of the student volunteer...

[Charity]

We love our volunteers. They bring us goodies on holidays. Okay. Seriously. We really do depend on our volunteers to help with patient families. They are the ones manning the waiting room. They help with updates, will bring family in or get them up to the appropriate floor or unit.

I think another hospital in my city uses volunteers for patient transport, but we don't.

[mustangsally1988]

I work as a nursing assistant in the PACU. We have had several volunteers come to work with us- us meaning the nursing assistants not the nurses-
Many of them have been very helpful to us as well as our unit secretary. They help us fill the blanket warmers, clean strechers, make packets of post-op papers to be stamped, answer the phones, and even transport patients.