Volunteering for hospice during the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted several realizations about American healthcare as a system and myself as an individual. Initially, I wanted to interact with patients due to a shadowing experience in oncology and hematology. The physician leading the cases for that day spent time with the patients, not only going over their treatment but also inquiring about their feelings and life beyond just taking patient history. Some patients had family members with them; some did not. The doctor told me, “Sometimes what patients really need is for you to listen to their story.” I didn’t quite understand at the time, but I knew that listening was important for patients to not feel alone. Through this experience, I was faced with the reality that life can be short and to not take it for granted. I felt helpless in the wake of that realization but wanted to help. I wanted to gain a better understanding of what the doctor meant through exposure to hospice care. It wasn’t until later though, through the reflections and discussions with Athena Institute, that I truly started to comprehend the doctor’s words.
Throughout the year, I learned a lot about what constitutes hospice within the domain of healthcare, how to cope with death and grief, and why compassion is prerequisite to care. I learned about the technical definition of hospice through a medical anthropology class, but I understood its spiritual meaning only later on. Palliative care focuses on patients over treating trauma or disease, emphasizing comfort and quality of life at any stage. I wrote a paper for an anthropology class that discussed the perspective of a healer (not necessarily a medical practitioner) and came to an enlightening conclusion, hospice also prioritizes healing over treatment. Research has shown that patients seek comfort, a sense of wonderment and spirituality, and existential peace at the end of their life. It has also demonstrated that there is no linear method of dealing with grief and instead is a process unique to each person going through it. At the end of the program, I realized that hospice considers so much more than the patient’s illness. Hospice focuses on the patient instead and their support network. Thus, hospice care requires compassion over technical knowledge since it is centered on people instead of the disease. At the end of life, people want to be heard and acknowledged as an individual capable of choosing what kind of care they receive, which is a freedom hospice empowers patients with that is not always seen in end-of-life care at the hospital.
With the advent of COVID-19, it has become even clearer that life is precious and that all stages of living deserve compassion and care. Although I have not been able to interact with patients due to the pandemic, I have realized that the most essential quality of a doctor is not having the greatest technical skill or medical knowledge but rather empathy for patients and themselves. If asked to describe what hospice volunteering has taught me and how it has influenced my desire to become a doctor, I would answer that I have realized that my purest wish is to help people, especially when facing the unknown.
Hospice provides a support system that terminal patients clearly need, and volunteering has shown me that not all healing requires medicine. At the conclusion of this volunteering program, I recall the oncologist’s words that describe what compassion truly means: to listen to a patient’s story. Through compassion, listening, and understanding, we can provide empathy and deliver care to reduce unnecessary suffering.