Health Care Volunteer Job Description
Health care volunteers are greatly needed in non-profit organizations. They can also serve in hospitals, schools and clinics in their native countries or abroad. Health care volunteers can find opportunities to serve for any time period (from hours to months). There are volunteer opportunities specifically for college students, and volunteering is becoming a standard requirement for medical school admission.
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Significance
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Because non-profit organizations rely on government and grant support for funding, they are often unable to pay employees as much as for-profit institutions, if at all. Consequently, non-profit health care organizations are usually in need of volunteers.
Geography
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As a health care volunteer, you can find work in your native country, or serve abroad. Doctors, nurses and medical students in particular will find opportunities to provide your services in local medical centers in rural and urban areas of developing countries. In such areas, you may be needed to help develop and facilitate public health campaigns, vaccinations, breast exam clinics and more. Anyone can also volunteer abroad by providing medical supplies to those in need of them, and training community people to look after their own health through simple actions like hand washing, tooth brushing and using condoms to protect against sexually transmitted diseases.
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Non-Medical Skills Needed
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Health care organizations can always benefit from volunteers who help with marketing, fund raising and administrative assistance. An example of a health care non-profit for which you can volunteer is Keep a Child Alive, which provides life-saving medications to families affected by HIV/AIDS in developing countries. The organization relies heavily on volunteers to provide support for one-time fundraisers. It has a college program that relies upon the leadership skill of university students, who create chapters of the organization on campus. You can also volunteer for one summer as an intern.
Opportunities for College Students
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In addition to non-profit organizations, college health care volunteers can help in hospitals and schools. Hospital volunteers might be staff in reception areas and gift shops, or might be needed to file documents, help visitors, visit patients and transport items like medical records, lab specimens and drugs from place to place within the hospital.
Peer Health Exchange is an an organization that sends college students in Boston, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles to teach a health education curriculum in public high schools that lack health education. In addition to teaching health education workshops, leadership council members train their teams and keep track of members' progress in teaching. College coordinators manage all of their school's health education teams and report overall progress and activities to office directors.
Admission to Medical School
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According to World Volunteer Web, volunteering in health care services is "a must for admission to medical schools." (See References 3). In phone interviews, assistant deans of admission from Michigan State University, University of Wisconsin, University of Virginia and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York were unanimous in that community service was expected from all their admissions candidates. Both the "US News's Ultimate Guide to Medical Schools" and "Medical School Admissions: The Insider's Guide" also emphasize the importance of volunteering for every medical school."
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some information for those of you who may be interested in this line of work.
