06.23.05

Volunteer Experience

Posted in Uncategorized at 10:46 pm by Perry

Today was my first day as a volunteer at one of the major hospitals in down town Dayton (I will not say which one because of HIPAA and related restriction).  I actually started last week on Thursday in training under another more ripened volunteer but tonight it was just me, the only one in the whole emergency department; needless to say I was a little apprehensive.

As a volunteer I have free reign to any part of not only the emergency department but the hospital as a whole, the only place that I can not walk around freely, or at all, in the psych department.  Another part of being a volunteer is that I have no set duties or expectations because the very fact that I am there is more than I have to do.  Some volunteers show up and read their books and occasionally walk around and doing something or, more than likely, nothing at all. 

Luckily, I had the chance to be trained under a veteran volunteer who was outgoing, ambitious, and entergetic.  She showed me that I can do more than get out of a doctor’s way when they are walking the halls.  I actually lead patient to and from triage, help set up crisis care consults, make “rounds” of patient’s rooms to talk and evaluate their care, clean rooms after someone is discharged, and even work alongside police, EMT’s, paramedics, nurses, and, best of all, physicians.

I know that it is selfish but the main reason I chose to volunteer was so that I would be able to get something for myself.  I don’t want money, recognition, a better resume or anything else along those lines; all I want is the opportunity to work alongside physicians in a setting that I can’t get in the current medical clinic that I am working at.  I want to see and take part in events that I would never see in an outpatient specialist clinic.  This ended up being exactly what I got.

Just tonight I saw three people brought in handcuffs by the Dayton city police, two of which were overdoses.  Another patient was an HIV positive patient who was admitted by her daughter for continued use of crack cocaine.  Of course there were more common cases of pneumonia, minor chest pain, lacerations, and back pain. 

I was lucky to befriend the head nurse on the floor who in turn introduced me to the attending physician and all of his underling physicians who were actually practicing in the department and told them that I was a pre-med student who was interested in getting involved and seeing all I could see.  Surprisingly, all of the physicians and medical students were more than willing to include me.

As I was getting ready to leave one of the emergency medicine residents actually went out of her way to find me and tell me of a special case that I could take part in (its quite rare for a doctor to do anything along the lines of giving up their time for anything that isn’t immediately relevant to a patient’s medical treatment).  It turns out that one of the overdose patient was preparing to have a catheter inserted I was invited to watch.

I was overjoyed at both the opportunity and the initiation and was quick to walk to the room I was told about.  To my surprise the curtain was drawn and unspoken sign of “stay the heck out”. None the less, I pulled back the curtain and was greeted by a thirty-six year old woman tied to a bed with three nurses, a medical student who I had met earlier that night, and four police officers holding the woman still while her legs were pulled apart as if giving birth exposing her vagina and whole lower torso and extremities.  As you can imagine, this is quite a surprising scene to walk into.  I was reflexively preparing to turn around and walk away when the medical student, a real nice guy who wants to be a physiatrist, winked at me telling me to stay and learn without having to actually say anything.

I felt odd and out of place.  I made a point of standing out of the way in a back corned but I was still just an undergraduate college student and volunteer who had nothing to give to help the patient or staff.  It would have been one thing to be brought into a situation where I saw an X-ray read, labs done, or a physical exam, but no, here I was just a worthless volunteer watching a woman with her legs spread open as if I had something to contribute.  The procedure took about twenty minutes and the woman was so high that she didn’t even respond or realize that a long hollow plastic tube was being pushed through her vagina by two people with a room full of people.  The whole time I felt like I was taking place in an odd type of medical voyeurism as if I was in the wrong in some way.

In the end though I loved every bit of the procedure.  I learned so much just by watching and am thrilled about having more experiences along this line.   I am even thinking about picking up an additional night so that I can volunteer two nights a week in the emergency department so get even more exposure.  I thought I wanted to go into primary care such as family practice or pediatrics but the adrenaline rush tonight was to tempting to ignore.  Clearly I have plenty of opportunity to experience, learn, and decide in the future. 

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