Sign-ups are released on a first-come, first-serve basis at 12:00pm on the 20th day of each month via email by school representatives to students at our affliated institutions.

Please be mindful that we must allocate spots each month to ensure parity in volunteering opportunities among students from all our participating schools. For example, if you are a Baylor student, do not sign up for a spot entitled “UTH” or “UHCOM/UHCOP.” If there are some days that appear to be predominately allocated to students from a particular school, this is because that school had restricted volunteer opportunities on other days within that same month. 

We encourage prospective volunteers to consider all roles at HOMES - but please be sure to complete any administrative requirements beforehand! Feel free to join our listserv for more updates.

volunteer roles

 

health advocate

This role is open to any medical students interested in investigating how social determinants of health affect our patient population - no clinical experience is required, so this is an especially great opportunity for new students.

In this role, volunteers will become familiar with local safety-net resources, a critical skill for clinicians at any level, and share these details to advocate for patrons.

  • Responsibilities include:

    • Following up on psychosocial concerns identified during triage

    • Acting as an adjuvant social worker & providing information on resources to clients at The Beacon using our social resource guide

    • Using our official letterhead to provide referrals to services as appropriate

pre-clinical student

This role is intended for medical students who have NOT yet started clinical rotations.

There tends to be an extremely high-demand when signing-up. To maintain opportunities for as many interested volunteers as possible, these volunteers are expected to limit themselves to only ONE shift per month. If you would like to volunteer multiple times in a given month, we encourage you to sign-up for other roles like social liaison or even by starting the manager-in-training process (see below).

  • Responsibilities include:

    • Triage: Pairing-up with a clinical student to identify potential patients during triage

    • History & Physical: Pairing-up with clinical student. If two pre-clinical students, assign collecting history to one student & conducting physical exam to other. If only one pre-clinical student, conduct both history & physical exam.

    • Presentation: Working with clinical student to prepare verbal presentation, including history, physical, & differential diagnosis, to present to attending physician

    • Working with full clinical care team to provide management plan to patient

    • Providing care kit to patient & walking patient out of clinic

clinical student

This role is intended for medical students who have already started clinical rotations.

  • Responsibilities include:

    • Triage: Pairing-up with pre-clinical student to identify potential patients during triage. Leading discussion on rationale for selecting top candidate for patient to be seen in clinic.

    • Conducting & documenting preventive health screening

    • Education: preparing pre-clinical student to conduct history & appropriate physical exam findings, develop a differential diagnosis, & present to attending

    • Presentation: presenting assessment & plan to physician preceptor

    • Documentation: signing patient note to document history, physical exam findings, assessment, & plan

      • If patient needs a referral (ex: ER): writing information on official letterhead about the patient’s visit at HOMES & their reason for referral to an outside facility signed by a preceptor so that patient can provide this document upon arrival

manager-in-training (MiT)

This role is open to any medical students or pharmacy students interested in running a shift from an administrative perspective. Before you start training to be a manager, we do require you to have already worked at least ONE pre-clinical or clinical shift.

  • Responsibilities include: assisting the manager & engaging in on-the-job training for how to serve as a manager. This may include any of the duties listed below under the supervision of a trained manager.

manager

This role is open to medical students who have completed THREE manager-in-training sessions, met the MiT milestones, completed the written manager curriculum, and passed the manager certification exam. Once you have completed these requirements, please notify the Associate Directors of Managers (homes.manage@gmail.com) to be added to our list of managers.

BCM Students: HOMES Clinic is now a designated SLP site for managers / MiTs! If you are interested in counting HOMES managing as a SLP activity, contact the SLP program directly and cc homes.manage@gmail.com.

  • Responsibilities include:

    • First person to arrive (7:30 am): Hold clinic key and open clinic in the morning

    • Document all present volunteers for that day of clinic and confirm arrival time with preceptor(s)

    • Run morning orientation, manage workflow, and ensure quality-consistent care delivery and execution of manager checklist

    • Ensure all clinical activities are conducted in-line with our standard operating procedures (including current covid procedures) and prevent oversights or actions that would put volunteers/patients at risk or create concern for liability

    • Letterhead: write information about the patient’s visit at HOMES and their reason for referral to an outside facility (eg. ER) so that patient can provide this document to the site of referral. Have preceptor provide signature.

    • Provides bus passes

    • Train MiTs

    • Lead reflections

    • Close clinic, ensure all PHI is shredded, send volunteers home, lock clinic

pharmacy student

This role is intended for UHCOP students.

  • Responsibilities include:

    • Assisting pharmacy preceptor

    • Working with clinical care team to advise on appropriate pharmaceutical choices & pharmacy inventory at HOMES Clinic

    • Gathering medication history & providing counseling/discharge instructions to patients for medications distributed during their visit