Applications Page

Returning volunteers are always warmly welcomed and much appreciated! Those of you who have been back can attest to the delight with which the local staff greets you, recognizing you as part of the Hospitalito Family! Most likely, you have also relished the ease of getting back to work in a familiar environment.

There have been several changes since the beginning of 2009. Please take careful note of these before making plans to return.

1. Applications: All volunteers, returning or new, must fill out an application, and wait for an Acceptance and Confirmation Letter before each work trip to Hospitalito Atitlan. We are no longer able to accommodate volunteers who show up without making prior arrangements.

• If you worked at the Hospitalito prior to February 2009, you will need to fill out a new volunteer application. Regardless of the number of times you’ve volunteered prior to February 2009, we will be unable to schedule you until you have sent us a completed New Medical Volunteer Application and all supporting documents. This applies to all clinicians, surgeons, obstetricians, and specialists. If you are student, please fill out the Student Application. Please do not make arrangements to travel, until you have received an Acceptance Letter and have returned your Confirmation Letter, in which you will confirm that dates you will be working.

• If you worked at the Hospitalito during or after February 2009, please fill out the Returning Volunteer Application. If you are a student, please fill out the Student Application. Please do not make arrangement to travel, until you have received an Acceptance Letter and have returned your Confirmation Letter, in which you will confirm that dates you will be working.

2. Linguistic Requirements: With the exceptions of obstetricians, surgeons, and a few specialists, all medical volunteers must speak at least an Intermediate level of Spanish, according to our definition (below). Some excellent but non-Spanish-speaking medical volunteers have brought translators with them. If this is something you would like to do, please discuss it with us. If you are a student, you must be a solid Intermediate or Advanced Spanish speaker.

• Intermediate Spanish: Speaks, reads and writes in the present, past (preterit and imperfect), and future tenses (ir + a + infinitive construction sufficient). Understands Spanish speakers if they speak slowly and clearly. Interviews, examines and treats Spanish-speaking patients without an interpreter.

• Advanced Spanish: Speaks, reads and writes Spanish without mentally translating most of the time. Can understand most of what is being said by native speakers speaking at a rapid pace.

3. Orientation: All volunteers are asked to review the Hospitalito Volunteer Orientation Manual before or at the beginning of their stay in Atitlán, in order to keep abreast of changes in policy and personnel. If you have any questions about logistics, please review the FAQs document.

4. Volunteer Limits: We now limit the number of volunteers who work in the Hospital to 3 clinicians (MD, DO, PA, NP) at any one time. In addition to the 3 clinicians, we can also accept 1, sometimes, 2 obstetricians, and 2-3 students, depending on the number of supervising clinicians we have. Given a surge of interest in volunteering, we are now scheduling clinicians, including obstetricians, 3 – 6 months out. Specialists will be considered on an individual basis. The Volunteer Calendar is updated so that you can see when your help is most needed.

5. Staff Supervision: All medical volunteers are under the supervision, and working under the personal medical license, of Dr. Juan Manuel Chuc, Medical Director of Hospitalito Atitlan. He is a general practitioner who has been in practice for over 15 years. He is from the local community and is much respected throughout. He will not interfere with your work unless he has cultural or medical concerns, in which case he will approach you with kindness and patience. Please do not hesitate to ask his, or any Guatemalan staff member’s, advice. As is true the world over, nurses are a rich resource when challenging medical or cultural issues arise. Please consult them regularly.

• Supervising Fellow Volunteers Unless designated and introduced by Dr. Chuc as a supervisor, no volunteer may act in a supervisory capacity with other volunteers. Clinicians who have long years of experience teaching and supervising others in their home countries, often have difficulty with this. If you are such a clinician, please use your talents with the students. Only. If you are unable to so limit yourself, this is not an appropriate place for you to volunteer.

• Student Supervision: For the protection of students and patients alike, students must be directly supervised. This is the responsibility of both the students and the clinicians with whom they work. Students must present each patient to a clinician, review the findings and plan with him or her. Before prescriptions are filled, labs done, or the patient leaves the hospital, all orders, prescriptions and charts must be co-signed by a clinician. A clinician may be a licensed Guatemalan medical doctor, a licensed medical doctor from another country, an American licensed physician assistant, or nurse practitioner. With uncomplicated, non-surgical deliveries, a professional nurse midwife may the supervisor.

6. New Student Requirements:

• Students are no longer accepted for less than 4 weeks (not to include time traveling nor spent on vacations). Preference will be given to student applicants who are able to spend more than one month volunteering.

• Students must speak at Intermediate or Advanced Spanish, according to our definition. (See Linguistic Requirements above.)

• Students must prepare a 30-minute presentation in Spanish on a topic of interest to the Hospitalito permanent and volunteer staff. It is to be presented at the morning meeting during the last week of their stay. A copy of the presentation must be put on the Hospital computer.

• Students now pay a $25 application fee. If accepted, students must pay an additional administrative fee of $75. The fees are non-refundable.

If there is anything we have missed, please let us know.

WELCOME BACK!
MILTIOX!