When I first signed up to volunteer with this program, I didn\u2019t know what to fully expect as the only experience I had had with death and end of life care were my own grandparents and great-grandma. Even though my grandfather had received palliative care, I didn\u2019t know the full scope of what caring for someone at the end of their life would look like, and this program provided me with the resources and experience to better understand Hospice care. The regular reflection prompts introduced me to many incredible resources, and one that has stuck with me ever since I first encountered it is the TED talk given by Dr. TJ Miller. He not only emphasized the importance of empathy, a value near and dear to my heart, but he also highlighted the flaws in the current healthcare system and the idea that we need to see the patient as their own person and not simply their disease. I was also fortunate to witness that end of life is not always definite nor is it a straight path as I was able to meet a patient who was taken off of palliative care. I realized that end of life care is a dynamic process and it looks different for each person, and that ensuring quality of life is an essential aspect of medical treatment. I\u2019m grateful to have met each patient I\u2019ve been partnered with as I\u2019ve realized what\u2019s truly important in life over the course of building relationships with them. After beginning this program, I no longer worry about the small inconveniences and I\u2019ve also really honed in on valuing the relationships I\u2019ve built along the way as my patients have told me their own stories and regrets. I feel I have become a better person and that I\u2019ve grown in emotional maturity over the course of the program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I first signed up to volunteer with this program, I didn\u2019t know what to fully expect as the only experience I had had with death and end of life care were my own grandparents and great-grandma. Even though my grandfather had received palliative care, I didn\u2019t know the full scope of what caring for … Continue reading “Realizing what’s truly important in life”<\/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":[14],"program_year":[52],"class_list":["post-2113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-haverford","program_year-52"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113","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=2113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2218,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions\/2218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=2113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}