Volunteering Requirements and Guidelines

While VUMC has volunteer schedule openings seven days a week and from morning to night, our greatest needs are Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. We have limited weekend and evening openings. If you are available during weekdays, you will have a greater selection of opportunities.

Before you apply, ask yourself these questions:

1. Have I carefully and realistically considered my schedule to ensure I am able to commit to a weekly volunteer time for six months to one year?
2. As a college student, how much am I already committed to extra-curricular activities, volunteering, employment, or other obligations?  
3. Am I comfortable in a clinical environment where I will see children or adults who are sick or in pain and families under stress?
4. Will I be able to treat my commitment to volunteer similarly to the seriousness with which I treat work or school obligations?
5. Am I comfortable submitting to a background check?
6. Am I willing and able to maintain professional boundaries with patients and families?

If you answered yes to all the questions, please continue. If you answered no to any of the questions, Vanderbilt may not meet your goals as a volunteer.

Consider these statements and decide if they are true for you:

1. I want to gain clinical experience by practicing the skills I have learned at school.
2. I hope that by volunteering I will be better able to work through my grief over the loss of a loved one.
3. I have a story to tell and want to share my experience with others.
4. I have a month or two of unexpected free time and would like to volunteer on a short-term basis.
5. I hope that volunteering will lead directly to employment at VUMC.
6. I need to be busy all the time.
7. I have recently experienced the death of someone close to me.*
8. I am currently looking for full-time employment.**

If any of these statements are true, please reconsider applying to volunteer at VUMC at this time.

Once you have reviewed and carefully considered the above, and you are able to fulfill our commitment requirements, we welcome you to apply.

*Please wait one year to apply.

**Please wait to apply until you are established in your new job.

1. Apply online. Forms will be enabled when application windows are open: Adult Application | College Undergraduate Application
2. After we review and accept your application, we will contact you to schedule an interview. During the interview we will discuss if volunteering at VUMC is a fit for you, your possible placement and schedule, as well as next steps.
3. Complete the background check release form. Volunteering at the hospital and clinics is contingent upon a completed background check.
4. Complete our Online Volunteer Orientation and Training. We developed this training to provide you with overall, broad-based knowledge about volunteering in a hospital and clinical setting. It includes education about responding to emergency situations. We also offer compliance training that covers the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) that protects patient privacy, among other topics. 
5. Obtain and/or submit the required immunizations.
6. Obtain VUMC volunteer ID badge and vest.
7. Complete the unit-specific training for your volunteer placement, which may take place in a group or one-on-one setting.

Immunizations, or proof of immunizations, are required to volunteer at Vanderbilt. As part of our year-round program, if you don't have the required immunizations, the Volunteer Services Department will provide them at no expense to you through the Vanderbilt Occupational Health Clinic. Vaccination requirements are subject to change, and newly required vaccinations will also be provided.

The following immunizations are required:

• TB blood test (recommended) or two-step tuberculosis; two TB skin tests, two weeks apart. If you have documentation of one within the past 12 months and one within the last 3 months, the requirement is met.
• MMR (measles, mumps and rubella); two MMR vaccinations, one month apart. If you have documentation of two MMR vaccines since 12 months of age, the requirement is met. If born prior to Jan. 1, 1957, the rubella titer (not the MMR) is required.
• Varicella titer to assess immunity to chicken pox, or documentation of two Varivax vaccinations at least one month apart
• Hepatitis B 3-shot series (declination waiver may be signed)
• TDAP
• Annual influenza vaccination