Medical School Students’ Attitudes towards Voluntering

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School is an institution designed for education and breeding. It enables acquirement of knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for performing of a specific work. Attitudes govern our behaviour. Choosing to work as a nurse or a medical technician we demonstrate humaneness and willingness to help people in the most difficult situations, while at the same time we provide the means of existence to ourselves. Volunteering means engageing in an activity during our own free time without financial amends or any other benefits. The common features of nursing and volunteering are humaneness and unselfishness. This research is aimed at questioning the connection between the choice of profession and the attitudes of high school students on the topic of volunteering. The research is conducted in The Nursing School Vrapce in 2014 between March 3 and 14. It was carried out in the form of an anonymous survey aimed at students of first and fourth grade, with 161 students in total participating in the poll. The results were interpreted by means of descriptive and inferencial statistics. Hi-square was used to test the indipendence of the variables, while t-test was applied to the part of the survey that examines attitudes on the assessment scale. The results show that most of examinees got the first information about volunteering before entering high school. They also showed that they understand the meaning of the term, they know about the benefits it brings in the community and are aware that it is only partially appreciated. The attitudes of male and female students showed some significant statistic differences. Female students were more willing to join the available volunteering opportunities because they want to help those in need. By helping others they feel useful, they regard it as a good way to spend their free time and a mean to solve some personal issues. Male students are more inclinded to volunteer in a political activities/parties, or as a means that would eventually lead to employment. First grade students show more tendencies to volunteer in nursing homes, while seniors regard volunteering as an occupation that requires a considerable amount of free time.