Every year, Madison House offers many opportunities for students to get involved with volunteering in the health and medical sectors. These opportunities range from interpersonal interactions with patients to administrative work in both clinical and non-clinical settings, from emergency rooms to nursing homes to recreational facilities.

UVA has two clinical partnerships, one with UVA Health and the other with Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital (SMJH). Because these programs are medically-oriented and due to the large volume of interest, there are a few mandatory events for students to attend at the beginning of fall semester, starting with an information session. This year, more than 1,000 students attended one of the information sessions, more than 900 students applied, and over 600 students were placed into one of these clinical Health or Medical Programs. For students who do not receive a clinical placement, there are other volunteer opportunities within Health and Medical Services programs, such as Adopt-a-Grandparent, Recreation Therapy, or Helpline.

Call for Additional Community Partners

Many pre-med students seek clinical volunteer placements due to their academic program requirements. Students generally need around 100 hours of clinical work for their medical school applications. While Madison House tries to place as many volunteers as possible, there are a finite number of spaces allotted by each hospital program. With such high demand, Madison House seeks additional community partners for upcoming semesters.

“Madison House is looking to expand the number of placements with community health and medical providers,” says Tim Mullen, Volunteer Programs Manager at Madison House. “We are particularly seeking opportunities for student volunteers where they interact with patients or physicians in a way that is directly related to patient care.”

Medical schools have differing interpretations of what qualifies as clinical experience. Generally, they acknowledge activities such as directly observing and learning from physicians, working as a scribe, serving as an EMT/EMS personnel, providing direct patient care, engaging in clinical research, assisting at free clinics, and offering medical language interpretation. Some institutions might broaden their criteria to encompass hospital volunteering, aiding elderly individuals with daily hygiene and nutrition in a patient care setting, providing support in hospice care, and participating in crisis counseling and mental health assistance.

To this end, Madison House actively seeks additional Community Partners that can provide these types of student volunteer experiences in the coming year. If you are interested in becoming a community partner, please complete an inquiry form.

Becoming a Volunteer

After completing the required information sessions at the beginning of the semester, students are randomly assigned a time on “Sign Up Sunday”. Sign Up Sunday occurs the Sunday before Labor Day in the Newcomb Hall Ballroom. It gives students an opportunity to explore available hospital placements and choose one that aligns with their interests and schedule. Bharath Kumar, a third-year student at UVA and Head Program Director (HPD) of the UVA Health program, describes Sign up Sunday as “organized chaos”.

“In just 9 hours, over 50 program directors work together to sign up more than 600 volunteers for shifts, training, orientations, and health appointments,” explains HPD of the SMJH, third-year student Ryan Kenyon.

A Day in the Life of a Hospital Volunteer

Within each of the hospitals, there are different activities students can do. In the UVA Health program alone, Bharath oversees around 35 different units and somewhere between 415-420 volunteers. While about three quarters of his programs have patient contact, the remaining ones support hospital staff and assist with administrative tasks. His first year at UVA, Bharath participated in an ED (Emergency Department) Lobby program. As part of this volunteer placement, he walked through the emergency room and talked to patients who had been waiting hours to be seen. The personal interaction eases patient stress and improves the atmosphere in the waiting room. Programs allow students to get involved with specific units as well, including inpatient cardiology, oncology, therapy, and pediatrics.

The SMJH reserves 80 spots for UVA students volunteering through Madison House. “In addition to those 80 volunteers, I also oversee about 50 volunteers spread across the Charlottesville Free Clinic, two hospice networks, and a pediatrician’s office,” Ryan shares.

A typical volunteer session at SMJH goes as follows, explains Ryan: “Volunteers first scan into the hospital with their badges and then report to the hub to clock in. We traverse SMJH’s halls to find our respective units, such as the emergency department, surgery, oncology, etc. The next three hours are filled with a mix of administrative tasks and patient interaction – managing a phone line, fetching someone a cup of water, cleaning rooms in between patient stays, chatting with loved ones during procedures. After that, we clock out and go home. We don’t perform brain surgery. We don’t write prescriptions. We surely don’t diagnose. And yet, we are still necessary to the hospital, functioning as counterpoints to the clinical atmosphere. We offer a friendly face and a warm welcome. We might make up one small cog in the great lumbering machine that is a health system, but the part we play is essential.”

Additional Opportunities

Madison House offers additional health- and medically-oriented volunteer programs, such as Adopt-a-Grandparent, Recreation Therapy, and Helpline. These programs are able to take a larger volume of volunteers due to the more flexible nature of not being in a hospital. In fact, some of these programs are still accepting volunteers for the 2023-2024 academic year.

There is a different process for students to get involved through non-hospital volunteer placements. For example, prospective Adopt-a-Grandparent volunteers complete a google form demonstrating their interest and time availability. To date, Head Program Director Emma Troischt, a fourth-year pre-med student, has organized about 125 volunteers into time slots. She notes, “We accept volunteers year-round, so this number is still increasing and will likely continue to do so.”

“A typical volunteering session with Adopt-a-Grandparent is an approximately one-hour visit to a local rehabilitation facility, nursing home, or memory care facility. Volunteers are expected to visit their assigned facility a minimum of once per week. During visits, volunteers are paired with residents for a wide variety of activities, including conversation, arts and crafts, bingo, yoga, and more. We try to ensure that most volunteers are paired with the same residents on each visit. This allows them to form long-term, meaningful connections,” explains Emma.

“While volunteers are not permitted to administer any sort of medical care to residents, they are surrounded by trained healthcare professionals and are able to observe their administration of care,” Emma adds. As such, even non-clinical programs can offer insight into the medical world.

The Many Benefits of Volunteering

Bharath calls volunteering at these programs an “exercise in compassion”. With around 800 students volunteering in some way for all of Madison House’s medical and health programs, it is evident that motivation to give back is high among UVA students. And, the advantages of engaging in these activities extend far beyond a student’s four years at UVA. Bharath believes that volunteers walk away with increased leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills.

Emma remarks on another benefit she has noticed, saying, “Volunteers meet community members, as well as other students. Additionally, they interact with people that they may not otherwise meet, which exposes them to varying perspectives and lived experiences.” Increasing social networks and knowledge, as well as gaining insights to health and medical spheres, is beneficial to both the volunteers and the community members they serve.

Bharath comments that students can be discouraged by the limited availability of spots or how competitive it can be to get into programs. However, he points out, this speaks to the culture at UVA; so many students hope to give back to their community. He reinforces that Madison House welcomes students to reach out to them for all sorts of opportunities, not just health and medical services.

With such a diverse range of programs and activities, Madison House is eager for UVA students to direct this generous and eager energy into real actions. To get involved this year as a student volunteer, visit the Madison House website to learn about current volunteer opportunities.

By Cecilia Murphy