Volunteer Resources & FAQ

Outpatient volunteers wear business casual: closed-toed shoes, no jeans, no leggings. Inpatient volunteers may wear scrubs purchased from our approved vendor. Information desk and discharge lounge volunteers wear a blue polo shirt provided by Volunteer Services with business casual pants or a mid-length skirt.

Yes. This is especially important if you need verification of your volunteer hours in the future. You may clock hours at the volunteer kiosk or by app on a smartphone.

Students who have set up a shadowing opportunity with a provider, such as an MD, ARNP, or PA-C, must coordinate this with the Medical Director’s office (meddirec@uw.edu).

Students who have set up a shadowing opportunity with any other type of staff person, such as an RN or MA, may contact the Volunteer Office (hmcvol@uw.edu) for assistance in submitting the necessary documentation.

Please note the Volunteer Office cannot assist in setting up shadowing opportunities. We only provide and collect the Shadowing Agreement and onboarding documentation which must be signed by the student and their host, and parent/guardian if under 18.

Volunteering at the hospital does not guarantee employment at Harborview. However, being a volunteer does reflect positively on your application for employment. We have many volunteers who go on to work at Harborview.

If you do not complete the process within 60 days, your application will be discarded.

Of course! You will be kept on the volunteer schedule until you resign. Please make sure to return your volunteer badge to the Volunteer Office when you resign.

Log your start and stop time at the volunteer kiosk near the information desk, use the VICNet app or use VICnet on your browser.

We will happily send a letter verifying hours. Letters of reference should be obtained from your volunteer supervisor.

Yes. You will fill out a UW Criminal/Conviction form and submit this to the badging office along with a copy of a government-issued photo ID.

It may depend on the availability of volunteering needs at the hospital. We require six months of service with at least four hours of volunteer time each week.

We ask that volunteers start out in one department. If a volunteer shows consistency, and depending on department availability, another department may be added after three months of service. The number of hours per week depends on the volunteer assignment; we cannot guarantee that volunteers will be able to give more than four hours per week.

We offer a variety of tasks and locations for our volunteers: inpatient services, outpatient services, emergency department, information desk, patient discharge lounge, etc. Please keep in mind that we cannot guarantee you a position in any given department.