Good opportunity but poor program execution - Anonymous employee COPE Health Scholars Employee Review

3.0
2 Jan 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This program is a great opportunity despite many issues. You get to work hands on with patients in various hospital units and work closely with medical staff (more nurses and NACs than anything else). There are few programs that give you so much opportunity without having some kind of license. You must take initiative. You have to ask for work, look for work, and be outgoing while volunteering in your unit. You can't sit there waiting for projects to come to you. The more you are there, the more you will get out of it.

Cons

If you do this program, be prepared to deal with poor management and many issues. A classmate warned me about some of these issues before I joined the program, but I didn't really understand until I was in the program. COPE Health Solutions is first and foremost a money making business. They essentially make money off the Health Scholars (unpaid volunteers). The hospital pays COPE and you must pay COPE to be in the program. You are working many hours as an unpaid volunteer, and they still find ways to make more money off of you. Unfortunately, you are often treated as child and receive condescending emails. You never get an email saying: "hey, we appreciate that you are putting your heart and soul into this unpaid work." The training for the health scholar program is insufficient and disorganized. You are mostly trained by unpaid volunteer student leadership who received very little training themselves. They also run most of the program. This results is little standardization in the training and unprofessionalism when you are a scholar. There are a million rules, and you are held to high standards. They don't hold themselves to these same standards. My advice is if you are considering this program, get your NAC license and work as an NAC instead unless you specifically need to volunteer.

Explore other reviews about COPE Health Scholars

5.0
26 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I have been able to create connections with all the staff in the hospital I've been shifting for a couple of years now. In addition it has been a very positive environment where I've been able to grow and learn new skills. The staff make me feel so welcome and I feel part of the healthcare team. The skills learned in this program are able to transfer to various healthcare jobs for example, patient care tech if you find the right connections/opportunities.

Cons

Sometimes can be emotionally exhausting with patients or various situations. Can be a very fast pace environment where you have to learn this quickly and efficiently sometimes at the moment. Will sometimes have rough moments.

2.0
8 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You get to meet with a lot of different people and you get into a setting where you can ease into basic patient care. Depending on how well you are at networking, you can make some good friends that can help you with potential employment

Cons

Management runs you like you are getting paid a salary and they don't think that your work or school is important at all when you are volunteering for them. Not only that but it is stupidly expensive to get into the program just so you can stock rooms and do grunt work. You will be expected to have some weekends free because they have these All Scholar Meetings that are mandatory. Having work or an exam is not a good excuse to not go to these meetings and they are some of the most useless meetings you will ever go to. Even though most of the people who volunteer for them are college students, they place themselves higher than college or work on your priority list. This program may sound good because it is at Kaiser but trust me it is not as good as the ads say it is.

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