If providers and researchers are the backbone of Fred Hutch Cancer Center, volunteers are the heart. Fred Hutch Volunteer Services relies on a corps of more than 110 people who volunteer in the clinic to help provide support to patients and families.
Some volunteers are former patients, grateful for the care they received and eager to pay it forward. Some volunteers are caregivers or relatives of people who have been in treatment or students interested in pursuing a career in health care. Others are professionals who spend their days at work and their free time using their skills to help patients; for example, cosmetologists will cut hair and style wigs for patients undergoing chemotherapy.
“Volunteers play a vital role in supporting our patients and families at Fred Hutch,” said Casey Costello, manager of volunteer services and supportive programs. “Volunteers are able to provide an additional level of support and assistance to patients to ensure they have the best experience possible. They often provide emotional support and a listening ear to patients and families, which can greatly enhance the overall patient experience.”
During COVID-19, Fred Hutch shuttered its volunteer program for a year. Only about half of the original number of volunteers stepped back into their roles, so the program has resumed gradually. “We had to recruit and rebuild almost our entire program from scratch,” said Costello. “We are still feeling the effects of COVID.”
In this series, we share stories from a cross-section of volunteers: a pianist whose music soothes nerves in the waiting room, a driver who shuttles patients from the airport to the clinic, a mother-daughter duo who staff the gift shop, offering advice both on shopping and on resilience, an advocate who works to get more people of color involved in research studies that help improve care and a podcaster who says there are as many ways to be a patient advocate as there are people in the world.
Read the stories in our series on Fred Hutch volunteers:
Volunteering strikes a chord with piano teacher
Almost as good as delivering flowers
Vaccine trial volunteer works to empower her community, end HIV
A prescription for retail therapy
Volunteer patient advocate can’t help helping others
Interested in helping out? Sign Up to Become a Volunteer.
Bonnie Rochman is a staff writer at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. A former health and parenting writer for Time, she has written a popular science book about genetics, "The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids—and the Kids We Have." Reach her at brochman@fredhutch.org.
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Are you interested in reprinting or republishing this story? Be our guest! We want to help connect people with the information they need. We just ask that you link back to the original article, preserve the author’s byline and refrain from making edits that alter the original context. Questions? Email us at communications@fredhutch.org
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