Becoming a volunteer through the Athena Institute Pre-Med Hospice Volunteer program has greatly shaped my approach to patient care as well as life in general. By meeting with hospice patients at a local nursing home, I have learned much from their experiences and have gained so many new perspectives. In the assignments and the reflection meetings, I can reflect on these experiences which enrich this opportunity.
In one reflection meeting, we were asked if we had experienced losing a patient yet. A hospice patient I met in the beginning of the program, died after only having met him a couple of times. I felt strange. I felt a missed opportunity of getting to know someone. The reverend leading the meeting explained to me that even though I only got to meet with him a couple of times, the impact he has left on my life cannot be quantified. She taught me that God teaches us something about himself with every life, and no matter how fleeting that moment with life may be, it has a lasting impact. With this patient, I saw that love goes beyond disease. He had Alzheimer’s and could no longer speak, sit up in a chair on his own, or remember his wife. Despite this, she showed up every day. When we first met him, he was flipping through a picture book of all his children and grandchildren. His wife explained to us that this was one of the many things that they still do together. She had this unspeakable strength that I had never witnessed before. She navigated difficult conversations of his condition with ease, grace, and love. Through this experience, I saw a reality of medicine that I had not uncovered before. Treating a disease and providing care only scratches the surface of what medicine truly is. I have learned that medicine is about how we treat each other as people first. Medicine is not easy and no one in this world is meant to do everything that is difficult on their own. The patient and the healthcare workers are a team that collaborate to create an environment that respects the values, morals, and upholds what health means to the patient.
I have also come to view death and hospice very differently than I did before becoming a volunteer. For all my life the two signified the end of life and I viewed them in a negative way. When my grandfather was placed on hospice, he was told he had 6 months to live but he only lived 1 month. Hospice to me was false hope and death was a single, terrifying event. Through this program, I have come to the realization that the end of life can be much more beautiful than how most people perceive it. The end of life does not have to be scary and can be more of a celebration of our brief time that we all get on earth. Anna, another patient I meet with, embodies this. I have met with Mary for around 5 months, and I would never think of her as “dying,” in fact, she seems more alive than many young, healthy people I know. Meeting with her I have learned so much about how she grew up and her family life. She has taught me to appreciate the small moments in life. She loves music, reading, and writing. Even though she is in hospice, she still lives everyday surrounded by the things that make her happy, she does let the chance of dying impact how she continues to live.