School: Villanova

Invaluable Intangibles My involvement with the Athena Institute Pre-Med Hospice program has challenged my vision of being a physician in a fast-paced emergency room and reshaped my rigid definition of medicine. Now, I consider my calling to healthcare as more of a call to healing than a call to cure. Reading Atul Gawande’s Being Mortal … Continue reading “Invaluable Intangibles”

I was assigned to one patient throughout my experience volunteering with a hospice program. Unfortunately, my time was cut short based on a slightly late start and an early ending due to the coronavirus. However, the time I was able to spend with my patient was truly eye opening. First, one of the most interesting … Continue reading “Connecting and Exploring as as Hospice Volunteer”

Bony fingers, labored breathing, and the sound of the steady drip of morphine. Holding my aunt’s hand as more time passed between each breath, I thought, “Why am I pursuing a profession surrounding death?” With each loss I suffered, I thought back to my two friends who each lost their mothers to breast cancer at … Continue reading “Hope in Death”

Before volunteering with Seasons Hospice, I knew little to nothing about the services that hospice programs had to offer. I, like many others, simply wrote off hospice centers as the place people go to die when they have run out of options. Hospice was a sort of white flag signifying that the patient has given … Continue reading “More Than Just Death”

Unlike other volunteer opportunities, the pre-med hospice program through Ascend Hospice and the Athena Institute provided me the opportunity to develop my interpersonal skills on a deeper level. Throughout this program, I was given the opportunity to develop a relationship with my patient beyond surface-level engagement. I did not get to spend as much time … Continue reading “My Time With Hospice”

The opportunity to visit with a centurion patient in my work as a hospice volunteer has broadened my understanding of the power of comfort care at the end of life. During our weekly visits, my patient often enjoys the companionship found in reflecting upon her life’s happiest moments. Singing along to her favorite hymns while … Continue reading “The Power of Compassion”

This hospice program has provided the perfect pre-medical experience to learn more about end-of-life care and has confirmed my aspirations of working in medicine. Through the video module training, group reflections, and biweekly prompts, I have been able to learn so much about hospice care and what it means to be nearing the end of … Continue reading “How Hospice Care Has Changed My Outlook on Medicine”

I started volunteering with hospice in the fall of 2019 because I wanted to give back after my grandmother was cared for by amazon hospice nurses before passing away in December 2018. I thought that this would be an experience to express gratitude and hopefully make a difference in my patients’ lives. I did not, … Continue reading “What I Learned While Volunteering with Hospice”

Hospice volunteering will, without a doubt, help shape me into the physician I wish to become one day. I have now experienced both sides of healthcare: the medical aspect which aims to treat a patient for their disease, and the comfort aspect which aims to provide happiness towards the end of one’s life. I will … Continue reading “New Perspectives”

In the beginning of my hospice volunteer experience, my sole aim was to develop connections with patients. As my time as a volunteer concludes, I realized that I never want to stop doing just that—giving all of myself to the patients I care for. My very first patient was an older woman diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. … Continue reading “One Year Older”