I have developed the most meaningful relationship with the third person I was paired with in the Hospice volunteer program. When we first met over the phone in the fall, her mom was on hospice, but even since her mom passed away around Christmas time, we have continued to talk every week. With each call we have been able to connect beyond the relationship of hospice volunteer and caregiver—we have actually become friends. While we continue to talk about her mom and how she is processing through her grief, we also talk about the weather in Pittsburgh, good restaurants I can take my family when they come to visit me at school in Pittsburgh, and the world. Her mom was never just a patient and she was never just a caregiver so our phone calls have always been about much more than just hospice. Even at the end, we talked about how much her mom loved Christmas and to decorate. Focusing on how her mom was able to put up decorations in her room in the facility she lived in, rather than simply how she was in the facility. After all, our whole lives and the lives of our loved ones are not defined by how they end, but by all the things we are able to do during them.
Coming into this program, I was definitely more reserved and shier than I am coming out of it. Volunteering in this program during Covid, I especially had to put those reservations aside in order to connect with people over the phone, which is certainly harder than in person. Adding to this the complexity of having to ask and talk about difficult topics like illness and death, this program taught me communication skills that I will certainly take forward with me into the medical field. Additionally, I will take forward the perspective of treating people, not patients, and including their loved ones in the treatment plans and conversations too. I think that often times for young people going into healthcare, we want to change the world and maybe even “save” people in a way, but this is a misguided way to approach it. Again, the people we treat are human beings before patients, and anyone going into healthcare would benefit from learning the approach that I have in the hospice program wherein you listen first and ask/speak second.
Overall, my experiences in the hospice volunteer program have affirmed my motivations to enter the healthcare field as an occupational therapist. Occupational therapy is about helping people be able to do the meaningful daily activities they need and want to do. Maybe someone had a stroke and they just want to be able to bathe on their own again, or maybe they really want to be able to make cookies again so they need to be able to handle cooking utensils. My goal will be to listen to their goals (as Hospice has taught me) to help them continue to live independently to whatever ability level they have for the rest of their life, and to focus on the things most important to them.