I have been volunteering at the VA now for almost two months. I am starting to get into the swing of things. I think I have met all the people that work in the ED (it's not an Emergency Room, its a Department with many rooms.) I've seen some sad things, and a few disorented naked men.
Most of my duties consist of taking patients to X-ray, Cat Scans, or to be admitted, as well as Lab and Pharmacy runs. I also wipe down the rooms when patients leave to get them ready for the next patient. I also stock the crash carts for each room to make sure there are plenty of supplies.
I got a pretty nice compliment from the Nurse in X-ray last week, she asked how long I had been working there, and I told her I just volunteered, she said I was better than most they pay to work there.
A week or two, we got another volunteer that was working saturdays. It can be slow sometimes on a Saturday, so to keep up from fighting over work to do, I pushed my hours back and now I work more around lunchtime than early in the day.
Most of the staff ask me why I am working. They get a lot of volunteers that are applying to a school and need to get in hours for their application. I just tell them I am there to help. Then they say, so you arent looking to get into the medical field or anything? I explain that no, I have a full time job, where I put in fifty hours a week, this is just to help. I suppose it would be weird for me too if someone came into my job to do scut work for free for no real reason.
I should mention though, for at least the next couple weeks, there is a slight benefit: Nursing Students! Yeah they are starting to do some rotations of the ER, so for the next six weeks there will be 2-3 nursing students runnign around. Talked to a couple of them today, they wuz purdy :)
So yeah, I'm enjoying it and finding my groove. I have all the security codes for the carts and the store rooms, so I look like a pro when I have to go fetch something. Or at least I look like I know what I am doing.
I don't know if it qualifies me to wear scrubs yet, but maybe I'll buy some just for home use :)