Nursing students can make a difference by volunteering with WV Center for End-of-Life Care

Whether remote or in-person, West Virginia University School of Nursing students have an opportunity to make a difference when they volunteer at the West Virginia Center for End-of-Life Care.

The nationally recognized Center assists with advance care planning needs so individuals and their loved ones can ensure their final wishes are carried out. The Center creates and distributes do not resuscitate (DNR) cards and other forms, as well as manages the nation’s most comprehensive database of patients’ medical advance care planning forms, which can be securely accessed by healthcare professionals in the event of an emergency.

Danielle Sollenberger, program manager for WV Center End-of-Life Care, said the Center was created by the state and has been housed since its inception at the WVU Health Sciences Center. As a small team with limited funding, Sollenberger said she is always looking for volunteer assistance.

“We provide wonderful education and resources,” Sollenberger said. “But it’s a lot of work that I can’t do alone.”

Sollenberger offers multiple volunteers hours to Health Sciences students, many of whom come from the WVU School of Medicine’s Health Informatics and Information Management (HIIM) program or from the WVU School of Nursing’s Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) program. Health Sciences students are an ideal volunteer population for the Center, as the students already have HIPPA training.

Volunteers can work on data entry or validation for the forms, either on site at the Health Sciences Center in Morgantown or remotely from anywhere with internet access. Schedules for the volunteer hours are highly flexible. Sollenberger is also flexible about the work assignments if a student decides the role that they were assigned is not a good fit for them. Additional hours can also be earned during holidays, semester breaks or during the summer.

Sollenberger said the experience can be especially beneficial for nurses, as they will become familiar with the medical forms that they will access in their post-graduation careers. The experience is also a resume booster, as students will be working with the nation’s most comprehensive database of its kind.

“Everybody is going to get something different out of this,” Sollenberger said. “Even if it’s just becoming more familiar with advance care plan documents, it’s super helpful. I knew nothing about this as a student worker, but when my grandparents got sick, I was able to help them navigate that process.”

The experience can be rewarding for students, too, as they can take pride in ensuring someone’s final wishes are known and will be carried out.

“If you volunteer with the registry, you’ll be directly impacting the community, to make sure the individual’s wishes are available when needed.”

Interested volunteers must provide a copy of their resume or CV, as well as a copy of their HIPPA certificate.

Volunteers can sign up via iServe or contact Danielle Sollenberger directly at dcSollenberger@hsc.wvu.edu.