I see healthcare as a human right so volunteering at Hospice was my way of investing into the Baltimore community. In my medical career, I want to work with at risk and often neglected populations.<\/p>\n
The first resident I formed a unique connection with was Fernando<\/em>: he liked smoking, sugar and baseball. He was from Cuba just like my abuelo and though we struggled at times to speak to each other, we had a great understanding of one another. Each week we would look forward to talking together as I would push him around the track outside. We didn\u2019t always see eye to eye, and despite our shared heritage we didn\u2019t have a lot in common. However, Fernando<\/em> certainly felt comfortable around me, expressing gratitude for our visits and telling me that I was \u201cgood people\u201d. I learned so much about his life and his family, I even met with Veronica<\/em> \u201chis lady\u201d as he referred to her. Other than Veronica<\/em> no one visited Fernando<\/em>. This was not uncommon for our patients. It made us as volunteers a much bigger part of a patients support system.<\/p>\n The first time Fernando<\/em> used a lift to be transported into his wheelchair, I could see how vulnerable he felt. This made me understand the importance of the work that I was doing. Residents are in the last phase of their life and are vulnerable to how people would treat them. While yes, Hospice is a place that provides comfort to peoples ailments, it is also a place to offer residents dignity in their passing. Watching Fernando<\/em> get weaker until he could no longer even be transferred to his chair was a difficult experience. What used to be our time to go outside turned into sitting in his room with some coffee that I would bring in from Dunkin Donuts. Eventually even this was too much for him and we would just sit and listen to music. Fernando<\/em> remained remarkably strong up until his death, still hoping for one more trip around the track in his last days.<\/p>\n I know these experiences and relationships shape the kind of doctor I will be one day. I plan to practice compassionate care. At Hospice, we support people in the walk through their last stage of life and similarly as a doctor hope to be an important support for vulnerable people at any stage of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I see healthcare as a human right so volunteering at Hospice was my way of investing into the Baltimore community. In my medical career, I want to work with at risk and often neglected populations. The first resident I formed a unique connection with was Fernando: he liked smoking, sugar and baseball. He was from … Continue reading “coffee and carrying on”<\/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":[48],"program_year":[45],"class_list":["post-1989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-johns-hopkins","program_year-45"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989","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=1989"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2053,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1989\/revisions\/2053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=1989"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=1989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}