A Breakdown of the Benefits of Volunteering for Hospice Care
With regard to the hospice program by the Athena Institute and volunteering for Anova hospice, I have learned a lot as well as expanded upon my abilities as a potential future physician. I have worked with three individuals who were on hospice care or caring for someone on hospice care. The interactions I have had with these wonderful people have become invaluable to my journey on the path towards medical school. I now have first hand experience on how I can help patients and their loved one’s work through the fears that accompany death and dying, assisting in the grieving process, and ultimately developed better communication skills with these heavy topics.
Volunteering for hospice care in general has been a fascinating glimpse into the human psyche when dealing with death and dying while also developing the communication skills a physician needs to be successful. Currently, my two patients are a man on hospice care and a man grieving his father. Working with a grieving man has been very eye-opening, for there is a lot of uncertainty with death. Being able to communicate with a man dealing with these uncertainties and have him open up to me about the thoughts swirling around his head is very enlightening to both the grieving process as well as the human mind. Does he wish he had more time? Of course. Is he at peace with the knowledge that his father is not in pain? Also yes, although, the latter question is much more difficult to openly admit. This grieving man is a good man too, for all he wishes is for his family to be happy and his father to be without pain now that he has passed on.
My other patient I work with is a very friendly, jovial man who values the simple things in life. He has been on hospice for almost half a year now, and he finds himself more frustrated than fearful with his current situation. From taking all of the pills to all of the treatments, he finds it overall to be frustrating. He told me that the frustrating part of it all is the feeling that you are not in control anymore. After hearing this, I was kind of for a loss of words at first. I simply did not know how to respond because he was right, being at this stage in your life where you need to take 20-30 pills a day just to be without pain, able to breath, not retain water, etc. sounds very frustrating indeed. After telling me this, he went on to tell me about how a hospice worker brought him Christmas cookies. That same hospice worker would cook food with him once a week to let him feel in control of his life and be able to provide for himself. This is when it hit me that hospice care is not designed to fix their patients, but rather make their lives more comfortable as they decline. In other words, the concepts we learned in the modules were playing out before me.
Overall, volunteering for hospice care has been a truly wonderful and fascinating experience even if there were difficult conversations and hard topics along the way. From the modules to actual interactions with my patients, I have learned a lot. This program has helped me grow my abilities as a future potential physician; more importantly, it has helped me grow as a person.