Advice for Pre-Nursing Student in SoCal... Volunteering?

[AnotherSoCalRN]

Hello allnurses.com community,

I am a pre-nursing student in Southern California. For El Camino College there is a point system evaluation for the admission to their ADN program. I was looking into a way to get as many points as I can when I apply and one of the categories mentions 'direct patient contact' (volunteering). Does anyone who applied or who is a current student/alumni knows what qualifies for this section? Do you recommend certain hospital/clinic/etc. for doing such volunteering?

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot.

[surfergirl12310]

im a volunteer at CHOC hospital, and i know for them you go to the website to get connected with volunteering. I am not familiar with the El Camino area, but I would look into your local hospitals, maybe if theres a st.joe's or kaiser, or a childrens hospital those would work. once you send in an application, they will probably have a screening process meaning that you have to do an interview,attend an orientation, training, health screening (tb tests, etc) and then you will probably be able to talk to someone about what area you would want to volunteer in. For example, I am an ambassador for customer service and quality management, and in my shift i do rounding in the hospital on all the floors of the admitted patients, making sure they have their admission forms filled because many come straight from the er and i talk to the parents, seeing how things are going (without asking, "how are you doing") and offer any blankets, comfort, etc.

[Britt585]

Regarding what kind of volunteer experience 'counts', I know that the BSN program that I'm applying to (Sacramento State) doesn't really care exactly where you are/what you're doing as long as you come in direct contact with patients, and see firsthand what nursing and patient care is like (as opposed to sitting in the back of an office somewhere, filing things or organizing supplies, etc.). Just make sure to document your hours as you go, with a person who can vouch for your 'patient interaction'.

I'm in northern CA, and I found that the volunteer programs in the hospitals in my area all had waiting lists of aprox. 4 months to begin the orientation/training process that leads to volunteering. I want to be sure to get the requisite number of volunteer hours in plenty of time before my applications go out, so I'm opting to volunteer with the local hospice consortium. There is a lot of training (24 hours) before I will start getting 'direct patient interaction', but it's still faster than waiting to get into a hospital program (not to mention I think it will be a challenging, educational, and very rewarding experience).

Good luck to you!