Volunteers are needed to serve as docents who will provide guided tours to groups of adults and school-aged children weekdays and weekends for our 140-year-old national museum in Washington DC., which the Baltimore Sun says is "pretty cool" and the Washington Post says has "plenty of unique items to make it worth the visit."

The National Museum of Health and Medicine, located at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, is not just another Washington, D.C. museum. The museum began as a national repository for materials relating to Civil War injuries. Back then, Surgeon General William Hammond told field medical officers to collect "specimens of morbid anatomy...together with projectiles and foreign bodies removed" and forward them to the museum to be studied in hopes of improving medical conditions. Today, the museum is part of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

The specimens and artifacts in the museum were the first collection in the country and is the only one in the nation's capital registered as a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Contact the Tour Program Manager at 202-782-2456.