Supporting Patients in a Healthcare Facility

One key learning experience during my college career at the University of Washington Seattle Campus was being an Escort and Cardiothoracic ICU (Intensive Care Unit) Volunteer at the University of Washington Medical Center (UWMC) during my freshman and sophomore years. As all incoming volunteers at UWMC do, I started as an escort volunteer who performed tasks that allowed me to get more familiar with the hospital. After about three months, I had the opportunity to be promoted and volunteer on the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Units. The mission of these units is to provide quality care to patients who have cardiac-related problems such as heart attacks, dysrhythmia, among others. My role included creating blood culture kits, organizing isolation carts, and interacting with healthcare providers and patients if necessary. This volunteering experience was valuable to me because it taught me about systems thinking, receiving feedback, reflection and application, other perspectives, and helping others.

My role as an Escort and Cardiothoracic ICU Volunteer at UW Medical Center is significant to me because it helped me to identify my core value of equity. Being a volunteer at a large healthcare organization allowed me to realize how critical it is to be equitable as a health provider in giving care and treatment in order for less privileged patients to have a better chance in improving their health. It also solidified my interests in working within the health field. Ever since I was about eight years old, I was fascinated by the health of a person because I knew that I wanted to help people feel better when they were sick and protect them. Also, it made me realize that every role, no matter if one is a volunteer or the nurse manager of the unit, is very important in the effectiveness and efficiency of a system to provide improved quality of care.

• Volunteered for 4-5 hours per week for 2.5 years
• Escorted patients to various places in the hospital, delivered mail, flowers, and belongings to patient, as well as specimens to labs in a safe manner
• Greeted patients and incoming visitors, cleaned wheelchairs, and worked with other volunteers to perform tasks
• Assisted patient care technicians and nurses on the cardiothoracic intensive care units in preparing post-op/blood culture kits and organizing bedside isolation carts, and observed direct patient-care skills
• Aided receptionists on doing clerical work, communication with staff about post-operations and patient transfers, and order materials for patients and/or staff on the units

Systems Thinking

Prior to volunteering at the UW Medical Center, I did not fully understand how important it is for every role to know their purpose and how that affects other parts of the work system. Through my observations of how healthcare providers (i.e. nurses, patient care technicians, surgeons, social workers, etc.) interact with each other and do their work, as well as asking questions, receiving help, and observing how my duties of restocking gloves and making post-op kits, I learned that systems thinking is a significant mindset to have. I learned how everyone has a significant contribution in their work and should take the time to do their work well and if there is any confusion, there should be a sense of comfortability for people to ask for help and explain to their coworkers and supervisors in order to produce quality care for patients.

Receiving Feedback

Generally, I am not used to people giving me compliments on how well I am doing my work or the tasks that I am assigned to do because I think that it is expected of me to do a good job on whatever I am in charge of performing. Hence, when I received feedback from my supervisor about how well I was doing and the impressive feedback from the other healthcare workers that I was volunteering with, it felt really great to hear and boosted my confidence. It also gave me new motivation to be a better volunteer with the critical responses that I received when I had to improve on a task. One example of critical feedback that I received was that I had to work on proactively communicating with staff when I needed help. I improved on this task by asking my supervisors clarifying questions when they told me what to do, asked more frequently to observe how the task should be performed, and bonded more with different staff members to build a sense of trust to ask questions.

Reflection and Application

During my transition of taking university-level classes as a freshman and sophomore years, I had to take introduction classes in the hard sciences such as chemistry and biology, as well as social sciences such as psychology and philosophy. One example of what I learned in my Anatomy and Physiology class was the relation between the physiology of how the heart functions with its anatomy of the different chambers, veins, and arteries. This class content was applied to my experience as a volunteer on the Cardiothoracic units through learning how the various medical tools in a patient room were used during treatment of cardiac problems. Also, I applied my knowledge of the heart in observing a heart operation on the unit and how to identify when a heart attack is occurring.

Other Perspectives

As an escort volunteer, I had the chance to meet new patients and visitors daily. Some of them would be willing to share their perspectives considering the hospital system and how they felt about it. When I became a Cardiothoracic ICU volunteer, I got to have deeper connections with patients who were there for multiple days and the some of the healthcare workers. I learned from the stories and conversations that I would have with some patients the significance of learning other perspectives in order to understand the complexities that occur in causing certain health outcomes. One story that I remember from a patient was how they were low-income and could not afford healthy foods because they were pricey and would not sustain them, thus their diet consisted of high fat fast-food items leading to their health condition of diabetes and high cholesterol. This patient also told me that they lived in places where they have to travel about five miles just to get fruits and vegetables which was costly both in time and money. Moreover, I learned that to better approach health issues and help patients maintain good overall health, the differing perspectives of a clinician and a patient need to be explained, so both sides can understand each other and find a reasonable method that is tailored to that specific patient’s needs.

Helping Others

I care a lot about people, and if there is a way for me to help others and make their days better, I will do it. When I started volunteering as a freshman, my intention was to get a sufficient amount of hours to show that I spent some time in a healthcare facility for my resume. I was only planning to stay a volunteer at the UW Medical Center for six months. However, I stayed for about 2.5 years because I enjoyed helping people in the hospital to provide quality care for all patients. Knowing that my hours of service was helping healthcare providers to do their work more efficiently and effectively made me feel that my time spent was worth it.

Reflecting upon my time being an Escort and Cardiothoracic ICU Volunteer at the University of Washington Medical Center during my freshman and sophomore years, I have used my leadership competencies of helping others and understanding the importance of other perspectives in my pursuit of my internships and connecting my observations as a volunteer to what I learn in my Public Health and Diversity courses. In regards for the future, I believe that the lessons that I learned from this experience inspired me to be more involved in my community at UW, and stimulated my interests in working with preventative care instead of traditional, clinical treatment. I learned from others’ perspectives in the stories that patients shared that there are many factors that contribute to health outcomes, and working towards preventing them from occurring would be more cost-effective and proactive bettering the health of all.