Jobs to work/places to volunteer?

cracklingkraken, ASN, RN · Sep 2, 2015

Some schools don't even consider volunteering experience. A lot of hospital volunteers are limited to clerical work, such as stocking supplied and organizing. You could consider enrolling in a CNA program and working as a CNA.

verene, MSN · Sep 2, 2015

Hospitals usually have volunteer opportunities, but may not always provide as much hands-on experience. It depends on the hospital, the unit, and the volunteer program. I was fortunate to volunteer in an in-patient hospice care center where volunteers were actively involved in working with patients and families, so there are positions out there that do allow volunteers to have patient contact.

Other places to look into for volunteering are nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and adult day-centers (particularly if you have activity planning skills!), or even your local blood bank.

It is true that not all schools will consider volunteer experience. Many of the local community colleges don't factor volunteer hours into their admissions algorithm. A local university however requires that applicants have a minimum of 100 hours volunteer or work experience in health care, another university prefers 400+ hours healthcare experience, so it really depends on where you think you might apply. Even if it doesn't help on the application itself volunteer or work experience can help give you confidence in interacting with patients, and provides an opportunity to network with healthcare professionals, which can lead to both helpful advice and potentially to future employment.

Since you have quite a bit of time before you start school training as a CNA or other entry level health care worker could be beneficial. Many of the community colleges in my area which don't care about experience do care about CNA training and will give a few extra points in admission if you have it. (Or in the case of one local school, passing a CNA course is an admissions requirement). A CNA certificate will take 4-12 weeks of training to attain, and then you are eligible for a wide variety of entry level health care jobs, the pay is typically very low, but the experience is invaluable.