LMC Volunteer Opportunities
Opportunities Available for WBB Volunteers
Interpreters
This is the most common volunteer opportunity we fulfill at Lutheran Medical Center. As a volunteer, you will generally be assigned to a specific area of the hospital. You will have to wear a badge that identifies you as a fluent speaker of your language, and a pager so that you can be contacted if you're needed to interpret in a different area. Your responsibility is to assist in communication between staff and patients. You will serve to interpret conversations about the patient's treatment, prognosis, etc. You are not expected to know too many medical terms. When you are not interpreting, you can check in with the volunteer office to see where you are needed, and serve as a general volunteer in other parts of the hospital.
Patient Navigator Volunteers
This is a new opportunity that might be especially interesting for those in pre-med, pre-nursing, social work or health education programs. The flyer focuses on volunteers who are bilingual in Chinese, but other languages (Arabic, Spanish, Russian) are also useful. It involves being a “patient navigator”: greeting patients, guiding them and their families through the system, and interpreting if necessary. Other responsibilities include patient assistance at the info desk, ED, and radiology. Click the following link to view the flyer.
Special Opportunity for Chinese-Speaking Volunteers (MS Word document, 172k)
Health Literacy Interns
The purpose of this project is to help remove barriers to healthcare by improving patients’ ability to understand health-related information. Volunteers will be trained to work with patients in ambulatory care center waiting rooms and to do the following:
- Teach and engage patients individually
- Give presentations on health related issues to small groups
- Document services provided to the patients and collect demographic information
- Participate in exchange with student interns from other hospitals
- Learn more about the Health Literacy Project at Lutheran
If you are interested in becoming an INTERPRETER, PATIENT NAVIGATOR, or HEALTH LITERACY INTERNyou must fill out an application, attend a new volunteer orientation, and have a short and informal interview (this is simply to get to know the volunteers and their abilities).