Service & Volunteering

Our interactive clinical and public healthvolunteer map links connects you to each site's volunteering page. When planning to volunteer, note, half-shift commitments are common and typically 4 hours long, not including commute time. If you only have evenings or weekends free for clinical volunteering, look at the larger clinical sites, such as hospitals or hospices as they are typically open 24/7.

Search Tip:
The map consists of two layers to help you research clinical and non-clinical volunteer opportunities in Evanston and Chicago. Please note, some organizations have their head office in downtown Chicago and, upon contact, may also offer opportunities in Evanston. Focus on an opportunity or organization that you would like to support and learn more about, as you build your pre-professional experiences.

If you would prefer to view the hospitals, clinics, and community organizations in list format instead of using the interactive map, download the documents linked below:

Volunteering and Service

Pre-health students typically have interests and values across different communities and may have participated in volunteer experiences during high school that required little or no training, or prior experience. Many students continue these commitments or explore new interests and values through different types of experiences. Reflecting upon how you have grown from volunteering and service and understanding the transferability of those skills to a clinical setting is an important aspect of your pre-health journey.

Your commitment to volunteering and service can demonstrate your values and skills, such as your:

Willingness to give of one's time and energy to benefit others
Capacity to work with and relate to people of different cultures/socioeconomic levels
Ability to balance academics and pre-professional experience with outside interests
Development of transferable skills from non-clinical settings into clinical settings

How do I make time for Volunteer Experiences and Service?

Volunteer experiences are some of the best ways to test your interest in your chosen health profession or explore pre-existing other non-clinical interests. Regardless of the experience, students should consider their availability between Monday through Friday, 9 am-5 pm, during the evenings, or on a Saturday or Sunday. Other considerations when planning to seek volunteer experience, include:

Adding in commute time to and from the site
Consider the work commitment across the quarter to include mid-term and final commitments
Your level of interest in the organization, population, or service
Any costs incurred for transportation, training, or certification

Do I need Experience to Volunteer?

Most students will start their journey into the health professions with volunteer experiences that require little or no training or prior experience.

What is Non-Clinical Volunteering?

Non-clinical volunteering can be any volunteering that does not directly involve patient care or even patients.

Non-Clinical Volunteer Experience

Students often have existing interests or communities that they would like to continue to support, or they want to explore new opportunities or interests unrelated to healthcare. Non-clinical volunteer experiences can help develop many complementary skills used in clinical settings. Non-clinical volunteer experiences can also reflect students' interests, values, and commitment to service. Here are some resources to explore as you consider non-clinical volunteer opportunities:

For more ideas on engaging with the communities in Evanston and Chicago take a look at Pathways to Community Engagement at Northwestern. Talk with your HPA advisor if you need advice on getting started with volunteer experiences, Get Advising.

What is Clinical Volunteering?

Clinical volunteering is any unpaid experience that involves participating in the care and treatment of patients and ideally one in which you can observe the patient/doctor relationship.

*Note, that depending upon your chosen health profession, clinical experiences can span multiple categories and be defined more broadly.

Clinical Volunteer Experience

Clinical volunteer experiences can be obtained through volunteer organizations on or off campus, or by contacting specific clinical sites. In addition to our interactive map, above, here are some resources to search for clinical volunteering experiences:

*Students have found these databases useful for clinical volunteering opportunities locally and beyond, using zip code searches.

Program-based Clinical Experiences

Northwestern's Chicago Field Studies in Health and Medicine is an internship for credit opportunity that has provided students with some excellent clinical experiences any quarter over the course of the year. Engage Chicago, Health & Medicine is another popular summer programmatic opportunity.