The time I’ve spent with my patient has been an extremely transformative experience. While I had to share my time with my patient with another volunteer, we each got to spend a lot of time with him playing board games and card games. I think we were both signs of comfort for him, as he surprisingly was able to remember us for each time we got to visit him even though his memory was failing him. Every time we came over he would always crack jokes and stay competitive, he would always ask what he needed next in Yahtzee to score and then would say, “watch this” before he threw the dice. Something I realized as I am typing up this essay is that after every game I would always ask him if he would want to play another round or switch the game. He would always shrug and gesture “I don’t know”, and many times we would just often keep on playing, because of this I always worried that he never really liked the games we were playing, but actually it didn’t matter if he liked the game, he just liked spending the time with people. While I don’t think this experience will change the way that I always ask the patients thoughts on their care and how they are doing every step of the way, because patient care is about them emotionally and not just physically, but this experience has definitely changed how I value the time I spend with my patients. In a hospital a patient might never be truly comfortable, but I plan to try to make the time with my patients valuable. To make sure I interact with them on a personal level so that they understand that while they definitely aren’t in the best of situations there’s someone there seeing it through that they will get better and that they have someone to talk to. My experiences with my patient have dearly helped my interpersonal skills grow. Due to my patient not always being vocal about what he does or does not want to do I had to look into my patient and try to notice the subtleties in his demeanor. Through that I was able to discern whether he was bored or having fun, or even if there was something upsetting him. These skills greatly allowed me to grow as both a person and a professional as it taught me more ways to better understand another person, even in times in which they may hide their emotions so that I may work with them more productively to reach better solutions, and as a medical professional the time I spent with this program and my patient has helped me better assist any of my future patients in the way that even though I am working on my patients I am also working with them as they struggle with their ailments so that they know that throughout their hospital experience I am always by their side, albeit not always physically, fighting in their corner. This experience has so greatly impacted me in preparing for medical school as it has gotten me to come meet and really learn about the people I will be persevering to help, I know that the journey to get into and go through medical school is tough but I know that when I complete it I can help my patients through their problems too with that same perseverance.