Engaging in the Athena Pre-Med Hospice Volunteering Program has been an incredibly humbling and eye-opening experience that has helped shape the way I view patient care. Working with hospice patients has both confirmed my desire to go into medicine and shown me some of the emotional challenges that come along with caring for the sick and dying. By being a hospice volunteer, I have improved my ability to communicate with patients, learned how to identify patients\u2019 needs, and above all, come to recognize the importance of hospice in navigating the difficult journey of death.<\/p>\n
My first patient assignment was one who was approaching death at the time of my visit; for the purposes of this story, I will refer to her by the pseudonym of \u201cRose.\u201d Visiting \u201cRose\u201d was nothing like I had expected; rather than engaging in conversation, \u201cRose\u201d and I sat in silence during the visit, as she was too weak to stay awake and speak at that point. However, even without speaking to her, \u201cRose\u201d taught me something incredibly important\u2014the value of silence. Sometimes, it is enough to just be there for someone; a comforting presence can be better than a conversation. Although this patient passed away after I had only visited her once, she taught me that I should allow patients to guide the interaction.<\/p>\n
My second patient assignment, one which I am currently visiting, is one that I will call \u201cBeatrice.\u201d Much like the first patient, \u201cBeatrice\u201d is not always talkative, and when she is, she often does not remember who I am. The most important thing \u201cBeatrice\u201d has taught me is to have patience and listen to nonverbal cues. When \u201cBeatrice\u201d is in need of something, she often signals using hand gestures or facial expressions. This experience has shown me that in patient care, nonverbal cues from patients are just as important as verbal cues. Additionally, re-introducing myself to \u201cBeatrice\u201d when she forgets me has proven to me that patience is a requirement for working in the medical field and that I am obligated to help patients feel safe and calm in their environment.<\/p>\n
As I briefly mentioned before, I think that the greatest way that I grew through the hospice volunteer experience was by becoming a better communicator. Having conversations with hospice patients has improved my bedside manner and allowed me to practice active listening skills. Additionally, through both of my patient assignments, I learned that words are not the only way that patients communicate; you must also pay attention to body language. Being a hospice volunteer has also reminded me that providing medical care is not just about treating someone\u2019s illness\u2014it is also about ensuring their comfort in the face of pain and death. Patient care encompasses every part of a patient\u2019s experience, including their physical well-being and their overall mental state and satisfaction with their care. The best thing you can do for a dying patient is often not to continue aggressive treatment, but to minimize their pain in their final days of life. If I become a physician in the future, I will remember that my duty is not just to treat patients, but to do what is best for their health overall.<\/p>\n
As a pre-med student, I think it is important to gain experience with patients from all different stages of life, especially those in the final stages. Working with hospice patients reveals the side of medicine that people don\u2019t like to talk about, but which we need to become more comfortable with. In order to be a well-rounded physician, you must come to accept that death is a natural process and that patients sometimes die. Hospice volunteering prepares pre-med students for medical school by exposing them to this reality and allowing them to learn how to support patients nearing the end of life. It teaches them that providing end-of-life care does not mean you have failed and does not always have to feel hopeless; it is an inevitable feature of medicine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Engaging in the Athena Pre-Med Hospice Volunteering Program has been an incredibly humbling and eye-opening experience that has helped shape the way I view patient care. Working with hospice patients has both confirmed my desire to go into medicine and shown me some of the emotional challenges that come along with caring for the sick … Continue reading “A New Perspective: My Growth & Experience as A Hospice Volunteer”<\/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":[56],"class_list":["post-2571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hospice","school-bucknell","program_year-56"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571","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=2571"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2655,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2571\/revisions\/2655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"school","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/school?post=2571"},{"taxonomy":"program_year","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.athenainstitute.com\/ahp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_year?post=2571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}