Volunteer Opportunities

Nurses, physicians, and social workers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center treat the person, not just the disease. In this same spirit, volunteers help improve the quality of life for patients and their families by helping nurses and medical assistants with their duties and visiting with patients and their families.

Below are examples of patient and family volunteer opportunities at many of our UPMC Hillman Cancer Center locations.

• Greeting patients and visitors
• Offering guidance and directions to patients and visitors
• Delivering lunches/snacks to patients
• Assisting patients and visitors at various reception desks
• Making courtesy calls to new patients
• Offering patients donated comfort items
• Preparing patient information packets

As a volunteer in the area of Patient and Family Support, you can volunteer Monday through Friday during business hours. Evening and weekend opportunities are not available in our facility.

This program encourages a minimum of four hours of service a week.

Pet therapy helps people cope with health problems, reduce their stress and improve their mood and energy levels while providing a sense of companionship. Here at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, we have a Pet Therapy Program that allows a certified therapy dog to visit with patients and their families in the outpatient clinics. Pet therapy teams are limited to a 2 hour maximum visit.

Learn more about the benefits of Pet Therapy from UPMC HealthBeat »

If you are an amateur artist of any kind — a musician, painter, writer, etc. — you can help provide patients with a means for self-expression and diversion. In this program, volunteers play music, create arts and crafts, read poetry, and much more to offer comfort and a creative outlet to patients and families during a difficult time.

Each day, researchers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center are taking important steps to increase our understanding of cancer and are testing the newest, most advanced treatments to cure it. Volunteers who have an interest in research and medicine have an opportunity to assist researchers with a variety of tasks.

Duties include:

• Tissue and cell culture
• Gene transfections
• Solution preparation
• Chromosome karotyping
• Cell labeling
• Staining and filing slides
• Cleaning glassware
• Glassware autoclaving
• Imaging analyses
• Library research
• Data recording
• Analyses

Application Information

We accept applications for lab volunteers during the following dates:

• November 15 through November 30
• March 15 through March 30
• July 15 through July 30

To be considered for placement in a research lab:

• Complete and submit the lab placement profile and attach your resume.