November & December 2013

(Volunteering Hours: 44)

Greetings and Happy Holidays!

Well, the semester is winding down and this is the last blog post I’m going to write for 2013! Can’t believe the year is almost over and my fellow students and I are about halfway through with completing our Masters degree at the wonderful Tulane University.  Seems like last week when it was July 17 and were just starting classes here… How time flies!

I am still volunteering at Touro Infirmary Emergency Department (ED) and I plan on continuing to volunteer there next semester when I return from our Winter break.  I have not had any experiences quite like the one I wrote about in my last blog from October… I am referring to when a particular patient, who was coding, came into the ED and ended up passing away on the table.  It was a very sad and strange ordeal and something that I will not forget anytime soon.  There is one experience, however, that I think is worth noting here, even though it may be considered insignificant to some. 

An elderly patient had presented to the ED with a serious, ongoing condition and the doctor was considering whether or not to put him on aggressive treatment that, in the doctor’s words, “may or may not help him.”  The patient’s family was there and the doctor had to explain the situation to them; needless to say, it was an unpleasant conversation for them to have.  The physician left the family to decide what the next step was (the patient was unconscious and could not speak for himself) and immediate family members were allowed to see the patient one by one. 

I noticed that his daughter was extremely torn up about her father’s condition and the possibility of losing him in the near future.  The ED nurses and physicians were just going about their day like normal while this woman was having possibly one of the worst days of her life.  I’m sure that the ED staff sees this kind of thing all the time and they don’t think anything of it, they’re numb to it all.  But for me, this is something that I haven’t dealt with before and I wasn’t quite sure how to handle the situation.  Do I go about my volunteer responsibilities and simply let the woman grieve on her own or do I something to comfort her?

I decided on the latter and brought her a box of tissues, smiling at her as I did so.  Even though I didn’t do anything to help her dad’s health, I could tell that she immediately felt better and was grateful for that one small act.  That experience reminded me that medicine isn’t simply about diagnosis and treatment of a patient; medicine is all around care of the patient, and in this case, their family.

October 2013

10/21/2013 (volunteering hours to date: 32 hours)

Well, it’s nearly the end of October… I can’t believe that I’ve been in NOLA for over 3 months now! It’s amazing how time flies.  This month has been quite busy as we had an exam a couple of weeks ago and we have another exam this Thursday. 

Aside from all of the studying, I have continued to volunteer at Touro Infirmary every Sunday.  The past few Sundays have been “relatively slow and calm” and even “boring” according to the Emergency Department staff; I think all of it is fascinating and I enjoy every minute of my time spent there.  Although most of my time is devoted to simply changing bed linens, cleaning exam rooms and making minor adjustments to make the patients comfortable, I delight in the opportunity to help the ED staff and patients of Touro.  This is what volunteering is all about, right?

           

However, this past Sunday will be a day that I remember for a very long time.  Not only did the ED staff entrust me to carry on extra duties, such as taking samples and sending them to the lab, performing EKGs and moving patients from the ED up to other floors of the hospital (e.g. surgery, ICU), but I witnessed something that I had never seen before: I saw someone pass away.  A patient came into the ED coding and after an hour of trying to stabilize him, the doctors and nurses decided to “call it.” 

I have always read about patients coming in with severe complications and despite their many efforts, the doctors were not able to save those patients.  Last Sunday I learned that reading about something in no way compares to witnessing it for yourself in real life.  You watch shows like Grey’s Anatomy or House and the medical staff are almost always able to save these patients… realistically, this just doesn’t happen.   My passion for medicine will not allow this experience to steer me away from my goal to become a physician but that 1-hour ordeal at the Touro ED will forever be a sober reminder that you can’t save everyone. 

September 2013

Hi, y'all (New Orleans speak for "hello")!

This is my first post ever as a blogger and I'm very excited to blog monthly updates about my involvement in the Tulane University Masters of Pharmacology program and the New Orleans volunteer community!  For these first few weeks of volunteering, I have been participating in Habitat for Humanity's Restore store and at Touro Infirmary's Emergency Department.  Here's a short video about Restore, for those who are unfamiliar with this amazing program:

My fellow graduate students and I have visited Restore twice now and both experiences have been eye opening and extremely rewarding.  We helped out by mostly helping the employees organize the merchandise in the store so that customers could find exactly what they wanted and with less confusion.  More recently, I have started volunteering at a local hospital, Touro Infirmary.  Touro is New Orleans' only faith-based, not-for-profit hospital.  There, I am stationed in the Emergency Department; my duties are to assist the doctors, nurses and technicians with various tasks ranging from switching out bedding to making deliveries to the lab located within the hospital.  I usually volunteer every Sunday at Touro but if I can add an extra day during the week to volunteer that would be ideal!  As well as getting to experience volunteering in a hospital setting, I also am gaining experience in shadowing the ED staff which will no doubt prove beneficial when I apply to Medical School this upcoming summer.

I'm looking forward to volunteering at the Restore store and Touro Infirmary more in the future and continuing to give back to the amazing city of New Orleans!