Hospice or hospital volunteer?

ami.625 · Dec 6, 2017

Depends on the type of position you'd get volunteering. If you're always going to be around nurses and not stuck with limited to no patient contact I'd say go for volunteering! But if you're just going to be checking donations and making deliveries go for the CNA. Being a CNA gives you actual hands-on experience on what a nurse does since that's basically what you learn in your first month or so of nursing school. Also, you'll always be around nurses and might be able to get one of them to write you a letter of recommendation once you're ready to start nursing school!

Lrtx82 · Dec 6, 2017

Thank you for your advice. So when I do go to the interview for the volunteer position, should I ask if I'll be able to have patient contact and be in the open/around nurses? Is it wrong for me to ask them this in the interview?

jess.mont, ADN, RN · Dec 6, 2017

No, it's not wrong to ask about what you'll be doing as volunteer. I'm a volunteer family care giver with a large not-for-profit hospice and my job is to spend up to two hours a week with patients. I only volunteer in nursing homes, but other volunteers go to people's houses and sound time with patients there. We go through eight weeks/20 hours of training. We have volunteers who want to become nurses (like me) and former nurses who now volunteer. We have CNAs who have become hospice nurses, too. Medicare mandates that 10% of all patient-care hours are provided by volunteers - although we are very limited in our scope, for safety reasons - so all Hospice organizations thoughts have a large volunteer component.

I love the work. It is my great privilege to serve patients and families in a most sacred time of need.

ami.625 · Dec 7, 2017

No, I think it's completely fine since most people who volunteer want the experience for school and what not. I'd say ask when the interview is over and they say do you have any questions!

Lrtx82 · Dec 7, 2017

Thank you. I'll be sure to ask questions near the end. I'm trying to have hope they'll have something available that will help me in my future prospects as a nurse.

The choices that they listed that I'm interested in is Patient floor, surgery recovery, and surgery waiting room.

Could anyone explain to me what exactly patient floor entails? My top areas would be to volunteer in Peds, or NICU. But I'm open to others

I have the interview tomorrow.

EmRo42 · Dec 7, 2017

Volunteering anywhere will help you when applying to nursing programs. Many of them require volunteer hours/experience. It will also help you get a foot in the door for a paid position once you get your CNA certification, so picking a location where you potentially want to work is also a good idea.

I also would recommend looking into private courses to get your CNA certification, especially if you are in a hurry to get certified. In my area, those courses were cheaper and shorter than the ones offered at community colleges. Just make sure you check out reviews on the private schools- their quality can definitely have a wide range from really bad to great. Mine ended up being a good experience- we shared some clinical locations with the community college CNA classes and some of the professors taught at our school as an extra job!