I have had the privilege of staying with one patient the entire program, and I\u2019ll refer to him as HR from here onwards. HR has terminal kidney cancer and had a stroke a few years ago that led to cognitive deficits. As a result, he has memory issues and barely speaks. He currently resides at home where his wife takes care of him, and my partner and I visit their home weekly.
\nHonestly, I was pretty nervous for this assignment because communication isn\u2019t my strong suit and it would be much more difficult with a patient who struggles to communicate himself. As I had feared, it was pretty awkward in the beginning. I never really knew what to say. I would try to ask him about things I knew he liked, such as the Civil War and woodworking, but he either gave short responses or didn\u2019t remember. I felt self-conscious and worried that I wasn\u2019t really helping my patient as I had intended. However, as the year progressed, HR became very excited to see my partner and me, and his wife would tell us how much our visits meant to both of them. So I believe that this struggle I had and the realization that I was actually helping HR allowed me to grow in my patient care and communication skills. I recognized that silence is sometimes ok, HR enjoys the conversation even if he doesn\u2019t respond, and I learned how to ask better questions to engage him.
\nAnother important way that I\u2019ve grown is in my perspective in the care I can provide. Initially, I was solely focused on HR, talking to him and thinking of ways I could support him. But one day, HR\u2019s wife thanked my partner and me because our presence allowed her to feel comfortable leaving that house to go get groceries or walk the dog. Her thankfulness hit me deep, and I began to understand how my presence not only helps my patient but helps his wife. In this way, I see my role, as a hospice volunteer or health care provider, as not only providing comfort for the patient but the broader support network around them. Many of the educational modules at the beginning of this program emphasized the importance of the people and environment around the hospice patient, but it wasn\u2019t until the conversation with HR\u2019s wife that I realized that my presence could meaningfully support and foster this broader social network around my patient.
\nWhile I have grown in many ways, I believe that my growth in my communicative abilities and perspective on patient care will prove to be extremely valuable and unique experiences that I can take from this program to my med school application. In addition, I believe that this program provides a unique exposure to dying and death that will aid in my medical school application. Not only does this program provide a unique outlet for students to come to terms with death, but it also allows us to find healthy ways of coping with death and to be a source of comfort for others dealing with death. No other program provides such a perspective, and I believe it will prove invaluable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have had the privilege of staying with one patient the entire program, and I\u2019ll refer to him as HR from here onwards. HR has terminal kidney cancer and had a stroke a few years ago that led to cognitive deficits. As a result, he has memory issues and barely speaks. He currently resides at … Continue reading “Reflections on Conversations with HR”<\/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":[54],"class_list":["post-2374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-bucknell","program_year-54"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374","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=2374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2464,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2374\/revisions\/2464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=2374"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=2374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}