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.
