The relationship I built with my hospice patient took time, as most relationships do, but overall, it was quite enjoyable. At first, my patient appeared angry upon our meeting and just wanted to sleep—that is, until I started reading his book to him. Once the first reading began, he propped up and seemed to be well-engaged in his book while eating some snacks, but he eventually fell asleep. At the beginning of my visits, I saw him falling asleep as the cue for him saying that he had enough, considering he could not communicate verbally due to his disability. However, while I read through his book and eventually some poems, he often smiled. Even though he did not sit up, I was at least assured that I was providing some form of happiness for this rather solemn stage of life. This reminded me of a quotation from Being Mortal: “Our ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death but a good life to the very end.” With that in mind, I was hoping that my presence and reading to my patient would somehow contribute to creating more of a “good” life.
The value of this program in terms of a medical school application is unmatched! Experience ranging from finding creative ways to communicate with people who have disabilities to even just being more understanding of the process that they are going through as they approach their end of life. The author of Being Mortal, Atul Gawande put it nicely when he said, “We’ve been wrong about what our job is in medicine. We think our job is to ensure health and survival. But really it is larger than that. It is to enable well-being.” This hospice volunteer experience will benefit me the most in terms of patient care, not just treating the patient but genuinely caring to get to know them, so that they know that I am really there for them and actually care about their wellbeing as a whole.
This hospice volunteer experience was amazing, and it honestly took me from out of my comfort zone. The training can only prepare you for so much, and I feel like even though I was well trained, I still had to adapt and think of creative ways to interact with my patient if one method did not work (i.e., reading books and poems). My hospice experience has reinforced my overall sense of vocation, since communicating with patients went better than I expected. This program has taught me how to genuinely care for the actual wellbeing of a patient and improve my future bedside manners as a whole, which is something medical school doesn’t entirely prepare you for.