Over the course of the year, I received training that allowed me to meet people through the hospice program close to my school, Bucknell University. I had one patient for a couple weeks (with winter break and the new remote learning schedule, I was unable to meet with multiple people). I definitely learned a lot just from talking with her every week, and I treasure the conversations that I had with her.<\/p>\n
I also learned to respect Bridget\u2019s<\/em> perspective, as it was very different from my own. Bridget<\/em> believed that, in her own words, because she had walked with God all her life, she would be with Him after she passed away as well. Personally, I am not a very religious person, so I initially had trouble navigating this conversation in a supportive and thoughtful way. I started by asking her more questions about her faith in an effort to learn more about her life. I discovered that she was more than happy to discuss God and what He meant to her life, and in discussing God, she was able to tell me a lot about her life. Bridget\u2019s<\/em> husband was a pastor, and she and her family had lived in Pennsylvania all her life. She moved around Central Pennsylvania, from Millersville to Lewisburg in 2005, and enjoyed her work as a teacher. I\u2019m happy that she was able to convey so much about her life just through discussing her faith.<\/p>\n Throughout the training for this program, as well as my meetings with Bridget<\/em>, I felt more confident about my career choices in medicine. Growing up, I always said I wanted to help people feel better again, but I did not always understand what that really meant. I knew I wanted to pursue medicine, because I was also genuinely interested in the science, but I learned more about the humanity about being a doctor through this program. After completing the writing assignments every week for this program and being exposed to some of Dr. Gawande\u2019s writings, I learned that \u201cmaking people feel better again\u201d did not mean what I thought it did. I learned that there is a point at which a doctor needs to make a patient feel comfortable enough to pass away peacefully, and I also learned about how difficult it can be to distinguish what this point actually is. I learned that death is not the enemy that it is perceived to be, but actually something to be welcomed when it is the right time and decision for the patient.<\/p>\n I would not have learned these valuable lessons had I not joined the Pre-Med Hospice Program; it was mentioned by some of the doctors in the first documentaries that I watched that they did not learn these lessons in medical school or residency either. Death is a complex topic, especially for doctors when they are expected to save people\u2019s lives. However, I came to learn that death is something to be welcomed when the time is right. I look forward to talking about this experience in my medical school applications; I think that this program distinguishes me from other applicants. It allows me to have a conversation with admissions officers and medical school professors that is more unique than just discussing my research or the classes I took. I know that in the future, when I become a doctor, this program will influence my daily decisions in regard to my patients.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Over the course of the year, I received training that allowed me to meet people through the hospice program close to my school, Bucknell University. I had one patient for a couple weeks (with winter break and the new remote learning schedule, I was unable to meet with multiple people). I definitely learned a lot … Continue reading “What I Learned From My Hospice Experience”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"school":[32],"program_year":[31],"class_list":["post-1470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-bucknell","program_year-31"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1470"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1576,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1470\/revisions\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=1470"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=1470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}