Volunteering & Experience

Gaining Experience

Gaining clinical experience, including volunteering in a healthcare setting, is a great way to explore a health career and develop and demonstrate your ability to work with patients and healthcare professionals.

Volunteering or shadowing hours may be required for a health profession program, and these types experiences are highly valued by the admissions committees for all health professional schools.

This section of our website talks about different types of clinical experiences, digs into shadowing a health professional, and connects you to numerous resources to help find the right opportunities for you.

What is it?

How many hours do I need?

Why do it?

What are the benefits?

Types of Clinical Experiences

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Unpaid Hospital or Clinical Volunteer

Clinical volunteering settings include hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, veterinary clinics, hospice settings, dental offices, and more.

Most hospitals have a formal process for signing up to be a volunteer at their site. This may involves steps such as: completing HIPAA training, a background check, completing certain immunizations, and more.

More information about hospital volunteering can be found on this page.

Paid Clinical Experience

Paid clinical experiences entail working for pay in a health care or similar setting. Examples include working as a medical scribe, an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT), a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), a Pharmacy Technician, a Personal Care Attendant (PCA), an Emergency Room Technician, a Phlebotomist, a Medical Assistant, a Dental Assistant, and beyond.

Some of these positions require some training, which could take a few hours or a few months.

Included here is a list of organizations in the Twin Cities that hire or train these types of positions.

This list is not meant to be inclusive of all paid clinical experience opportunities. We recommend checking Handshake or starting with an internet search of the type of experience you are looking for.

Shadowing a Health Professional

Shadowing a health professional involves following a professional around as they do their typical work duties in their place of work (hospital, clinic, pharmacy, etc.).

We have an entire page dedicated to talking more about shadowing, including strategies to finding a professional to shadow.

Learn More About Shadowing

What is it?

How many hours do I need?

Why do it?

What are the benefits?

Center for Community-Engaged Learning

One campus partner you definitely want to connect with when looking for a volunteer opportunity in the Twin Cities metro area is the Center for Community-Engaged Learning (CCEL), which serves all students, faculty, staff, and community members at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities. Through partnerships with local non-profit organizations, they focus on immersing students in the community through volunteering, community-engaged classes, and other unique experiential opportunities. A few key resources they provide include:

Database and Map of Community Partners
On this page, you can search by organization name, or sort by interest areas. You can also use the map to search certain neighborhoods for organizations near where you live!

Volunteer Interest Form
If you’re interested in volunteering, but aren’t sure how to get started, this is a great step! Fill out the CCEL volunteer interest form and sign up to meet with a Peer Advisor who can help you find organizations that match your interests.

Community Engagement Scholars Program
For students interested in making community service an integral part of your undergraduate career, consider participating in this program.

Getting Started

There are many options to explore, whether you are looking for a shadowing experience, a volunteering position, or paid work in a healthcare setting. Some of them might have detailed application processes like volunteering at M Health Fairview, some may require more effort on your part, like finding a health professional to shadow.

Our staff are happy to meet with you to talk about your goals for finding an experience and how to take the next steps. Sign up for a drop-in session, or make an Action Plan appointment today.

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Gaining Experience

What is it?

How many hours do I need?

Why do it?

What are the benefits?