Volunteer at Mount Sinai

Our award-winning Comprehensive Cancer Center aims to make treatment times as comfortable as possible for patients. Volunteers assist in helping patients and families feel comfortable and welcome during their visit.

• Skills/Abilities: Service requires walking and standing, some bending and light lifting (<5 lbs.), excellent patient and visitor communication skills
• Duties: Greet patients and visitors as they enter treatment rooms, distribute complimentary food and beverages to patients during breakfast and lunch, respond to patient and/or family member requests, keep coffee stations and treatment rooms stocked appropriately, perform other duties as assigned by volunteer supervisor

On a hospital campus the size of Mount Sinai there are endless opportunities for volunteers to act as a support person for office personnel.

• Skills/Abilities: Some offices require basic computer skills
• Duties: Answer telephones, assist with filing, sorting, preparing packets, miscellaneous errands related to assigned office, mailings (folding, stuffing, addressing and labeling materials), organization and setup of seminars and/or meetings, data entry, faxing, copies, perform other duties assigned by volunteer supervisor

Opportunities are currently open in the following departments:

Breast Center	Physician Billing
Business Office	Project Management
Case Management	Purchasing
Environmental Services	Radiation Oncology
Foundation	Wien Center
Human Resources

As a teaching hospital, Mount Sinai is dedicated to providing opportunities for college students and allied health trainees to gain skills and experience in their area of study. Mount Sinai has a solid relationship with many local colleges and schools and opportunities for clinical and non-clinical students. Please contact the volunteer office at (305) 674-2080 for availability and any special requirements for each department. We provide opportunities in various departments, such as:

Mount Sinai is a large medical center campus. Patients and visitors may often need assistance in navigating the medical center campus. A greeter is an important volunteer position that helps patients and visitors feel welcome when entering the medical center.

• Skills/Abilities: Volunteer must be mobile and able to stand on their feet for duration of volunteer hours, excellent visitor and patient communication skills
• Duties: Greet visitors/patients at entrances in De Hirsch Meyer Tower and Simon Building, escort visitors to treatment areas, physician offices, patient rooms, and hospital administrative areas, give wheelchair assistance when needed
  

There are three information desks, two of which are staffed entirely by volunteers, providing opportunities for volunteers on our Main Campus.

• Skills/Abilities: Excellent patient and visitor communication skills
• Duties: Answering telephones, transferring calls to patient rooms and appropriate departments, greet visitors and patients, offer directions and other general information, assist couriers in locating areas and/or personnel, interpret hospital policy and procedures to families and visitors

The library cart allows volunteers to interact with patients by wheeling the book cart around the patient units, offering free books and magazines to patients and visitors.

• Skills/Abilities: Must be able to walk and push book cart, respectful and personable personality required while speaking with patients and families
• Duties: Greet patients and visitors on patient floors offering free magazine and/or book from the book cart, restock and organize book cart at beginning and end of volunteer hours, relay and patient requests to nursing staff on floor

Mount Sinai Aventura Emergency Room, Physician Offices, and Diagnostic Center provide a wonderful opportunity for volunteers in the Aventura area. There are volunteer placement opportunities in the emergency room, cancer center, and reception.

• Aventura Emergency Department
• Skills/Abilities: Excellent patient and visitor communication skills
• Duties: Greet and assist incoming patients and families with a smile and supportive attitude, offer assistance and wheelchair if needed upon arrival of patients, assist in calling for taxi service and/or escorting patients and visitors to cars or taxis, obtain ice packs as requested or needed by staff, maintain clean surroundings (registration, triage, nurses' station, hallways, etc.), provide "nourishment with care" rounds (blankets, ice, water, tea, coffee, crackers, magazines, etc.) as directed by nursing staff, fold sheets, gowns, stock pillows, and other ED supplies as directed
• Aventura Cancer Center
• Skills/Abilities: Service requires walking and standing, some bending and light lifting (<5 lbs.), excellent patient and visitor communication skills
• Duties: Greet patients and visitors as they enter treatment rooms, distribute complimentary food and beverages to patients during breakfast and lunch, respond to patient and/or family member requests, keep coffee stations and treatment rooms stocked appropriately, perform other duties as assigned by volunteer supervisor
• Aventura Reception
• Skills/Abilities: Excellent patient and visitor communication skills
• Duties: Answering telephones, transferring calls to patient rooms and appropriate departments, greet visitors and patients, offer directions and other general information, assist couriers in locating areas and/or personnel, provide clerical and office support as needed and directed by volunteer supervisor

Every day hundreds of meals are delivered to the patient units for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Many times patients are receiving treatments or tests in other areas of the hospital and may miss the regular meal time. Volunteers assist in ensuring all patients receive designated meals upon return to their room.

• Skills/Abilities: Must be able to stand and walk to all patient units, must be able to serve with limited supervision
• Duties: Assist in delivering late trays to patient units – any meal served after the regular meal period, assist in collecting meal trays from patient units

The nursing staff at Mount Sinai work endlessly to provide quality care to Mount Sinai patients. They can always use an extra pair of hands to assist them with everyday tasks. Volunteers do not assist with clinical or patient contact tasks but are able to help ease the nursing staff's administrative work load.

• Skills/Abilities: Friendly demeanor
• Duties: Perform errands for nursing staff as directed by volunteer supervisor, assist in welcoming or set up of patient and family to the unit, escort or give direction to patient and families throughout the medical center, provide newspaper or magazines when requested by patients/families, answer call equipment at the nursing station and relay messages to appropriate nursing staff, answer incoming calls to the unit with correct script, take accurate messages, and transfer calls when necessary, assist in stocking or organizing unit forms and stationeries, assist in filling water pitchers for patient rooms as directed by nursing staff, assemble admission/discharge packets for nursing units, provide comfort rounds (offering juice and snacks) to patients

Under the direction of the Nurse Manager, volunteers are able to assist with routine telephone and operator duties in the Recovery Room. Volunteers will work closely with Abess Lounge volunteers to keep family and friends informed on the status of patients throughout surgical procedures.

• Skills/Abilities: Must have pleasant telephone demeanor
• Duties: Answering telephones, obtain accurate information and relay messages to appropriate department/staff regarding patient status, notify Abess Lounge volunteers when a patient has been moved to a patient room from recovery so family can be notified

Abess Lounge, one of Mount Sinai's surgical waiting areas, is a comfortable and quiet waiting area for family and friends of patients undergoing surgery. Staffed entirely by hospital volunteers, service in this area requires a volunteer to be compassionate and reliable.

• Skills/Abilities: Excellent communication skills with families and friends waiting for patients during surgical procedures
• Duties: Prepare fresh coffee and water on a regular basis, greet waiting family and friends warmly, update daily surgical list with required information, promptly/pleasantly answer telephone, notify families with patient status updates, when appropriate escort family and friends to recovery room, and other tasks as assigned by volunteer supervisor.

Volunteers with transport will be called upon to assist staff in transporting patients to their outside transportation once they are discharged. Volunteers must ensure patient is safely transported in a timely manner from their unit to the Main Lobby.

• Skills/Abilities: Friendly demeanor when assisting patients/families, must be able to walk and push wheelchair
• Duties: Correct use of wheelchair (training provided), safely transfer patients to/from transport vehicle, offer assistance as needed to patients upon discharge, assist in care and maintenance of department wheelchairs, promptly assist discharged patients in leaving patient units, report discharged room number to Bed Control and Environmental Services

There is always work to be done maintaining Mount Sinai's Volunteer family. The Volunteer Office has an opportunity available for a detail oriented individual that can assist with the day-to-day tasks of maintaining our immense volunteer base.

• Skills/Abilities: Basic computer skills, detail oriented
• Duties: Accurately update volunteer hour log, maintain accurate volunteer contact list, assist in providing parking passes to families with patients that have been admitted for seven or more days, write/edit volunteer newsletter, other duties as assigned by volunteer supervisor

The Welcome Center is a busy office that registers all patients visiting the medical center for outpatient and inpatient procedures.

• Skills/Abilities: Excellent communication skills
• Duties: Greet all patients and visitors in a friendly and courteous manner, escort and give directions to patients, families and visitors within medical center, transport outpatients when necessary, hand out numbered tickets to each admission and have them sign the register