Will I need to have urine/blood tests to volunteer at a hospital?

[Marko]

Hello. I am a 17 year old high school student. I live in Quebec, Canada.

I made a volunteering application at a hospital. I provided a referral letter from one of my teachers and I meet all their criteria (perfectly bilingual and such...)

I received an email from the volunteer coordinator at the hospital. I have my interview!

Now here's my question: Will there be any urine or blood tests prior to volunteering? And will there be urine/blood tests during my volunteering?

I assume that the hospital wants good clean people to volunteer there (I agree completely). But you guys know the percentage of ''casual smokers'' between the ages of 15-25...I don't know if they have a policy which states that if ever you smoked in your life, they won't accept you (well, it gets out of your system after 4-6 weeks, so it shouldn't be a problem).

I also have one more question. Will I ever interact with patients? It's not clear to me what a hospital volunteer does at a hospital.

Thanks in advance for your help. :D

[Ehudz]

Typically the hospital will need to screen you for certain things, in my case I was tested for mumps,measles, and rubella (a two step blood test). In addition, they may have to check to see if you have a criminal record.

Once you're in your program of choice, further blood/urine tests should not be required...unless of course you contract some sort of disease in the hospital or something.

I don't know if they have a policy about volunteers who smoke, but I guess if a patient can smell or detect tobacco in the volunteer, something has to be done. You will typically HAVE to interact with either patients or hospital members as I imagine even the most secluded role, say, a desk job, must interact with other volunteers or other office members.

As the posters in my past high school always said..."No Sent is Good Sense!" (followed by a stop-sign with legs, arms, and a face)

[Marko]

Thank you for replying so quickly.

I was referring to drug tests. Will they screen for drugs? I understand they screen for diseases and such because they have to, and I'm going to receive a variety of vaccines.

Also, before I sent in my application, they made it very clear that they would do a criminal record check. Of course I am clean so there's no problem there.

So the question remains, will there be a drug test (or multiple tests later on)?

[Godot]

I've volunteered in two different hospitals and I have never had a drug test. I think it would be very unusual to have a drug test. The most invasive test they asked for was a blood test to confirm that I had my required vaccines. I think asking for a drug test would be a fairly personal matter and to my knowledge, most -- if not all -- hospitals do not ask one. Relax.

[karimcha]

Hi,
I volunteered this summer at Elizabeth-Bruyere Hospital, Ottawa and I was never asked to give a urine sample or anything of that kind. A friend of mine volunteered at Gatineau's hospital and they didn't ask her either. We are both age 16. They only wanted us to provide a copy of our "carnet de vaccination" (I have no idea about how they call it in English). Where are you from?
Karim

P.S. Sorry for the mistakes if there are any, I'm a francophone. Anyway, I think my message is understandable.

[jelly31]

I've never been asked to provide any kind of blood/drug tests and I volunteered at 3 different hospitals.

[Marko]

Thank you so much for your replies, everybody! It's great to have a forum where I can ask all sorts of questions and people will reply in a very friendly way.

Karimcha, I am from Montreal. (et oui, je vais certainement apporter mon carnet de vaccination!).

The reason I made this thread is because my teacher and my family doctor said that they *might* do a drug test to make sure that I'm not going to steal drugs and also because they don't want ''stoned or drunk'' volunteers in front of patients (that is a little bit exagerated, but those are the exact words my teacher used). So I just wanted to make sure. It's much better to talk to somebody that has volunteered at a hospital before, because they know for sure. So I'm gonna stick with ''no, they don't screen for drugs'' and tell my teacher tomorrow.

Thank you once again for your generous help! I'll definitely be coming back to this forum when I have more medicine/career related questions. :D

[mk08]

I volunteered at 2 hospitals in 3 departments with patient contact and the only test I've had done was for TB.

[Sheena815]

You can probably just look the info up on the website of the hospital you're thinking of volunteering at- the one I went to listed all the steps to becoming a volunteer there (tb/ titers, ref letters, etc).

Most med schools don't even screen their incoming students, although there are some that do at least in the US.

[mdDave]

Yeah I had my blood taken but thats only to determine if I had some kind of shot in the past. Other then that I had a police screening check but that's only for certain programs. Never heard of them doing urine tests tho. As long as you don't come stoned to the hospital u should be fine

[THX]

I don't think hospitals have anti-doping policy for volunteers. Heck, most of the patients are high so why shouldn't you be too?

They just want a TB test and confirm you have proper immunizations. It's no biggy.

[Retsage]

Lol, no. The hospital does not care if its volunteers smoke pot when they're away from the hospital. Relax.

[Marko]

You can probably just look the info up on the website of the hospital you're thinking of volunteering at- the one I went to listed all the steps to becoming a volunteer there (tb/ titers, ref letters, etc).

Most med schools don't even screen their incoming students, although there are some that do at least in the US.

Well their website doesn't mention blood tests. All they say is: Ref letter, police check, and I may need to take any required vaccines.

It's the Montreal Children's Hospital affiliated with McGill...Can you tell me if they have anti-doping policies?