Volunteering at Baptist Hospital

Sandra Valenciano

As part of my CAS project I decided to volunteer at Baptist Hospital this summer. I had waited a long time to be able to become a volunteer there and I finally got my chance. Baptist Hospital has over 800 volunteers who have given thousands of hours to the hospital and I was proud to become a part of the team. There are a couple of regulations and guidelines that one must follow in order to become a volunteer and then be assigned to a specific department.

For the first 12 hours of service, you are part of errand services, which means you travel around the hospital doing errands from one department to another. This involves delivering specimens, picking up blood from the blood bank, discharging patients, etc. The actual purpose of the first 12 hours is for you to become acquainted with the hospital and make sure you know where everything is located because let me tell you Baptist Hospital is enormous! I must admit, I got lost a couple of times and had to ask hospital staff members for directions. However, I definitely enjoyed learning the entire hospital and meeting new people.

After you finish your work with errand services you can choose to work in one of over 125 departments, for example labor and delivery, pediatrics, the gift shop, and the list goes on. I chose the oncology department because I want to be an oncologist, and I wanted to get an experience of what it's like to be a doctor. Also, if you choose to become part of a patient care unit then you have to do training class where they teach you medical terminology, how to feed patients, and basic do's and don'ts.

I have really enjoyed my time at Baptist Hospital and will continue to serve throughout the school year. You have to commit to a minimum of 100 hours of service to be a volunteer at Baptist, which is not that bad, because there are a lot of benefits, including free meals. If you're interested in becoming a volunteer or if you're interested in a health care career and want to have a hands-on experience, call the Baptist Hospital Volunteer Office at (305)-596-6575.

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