My assigned patient, whom I’ll call R, is a 94-year old with prodromal (early stage) Parkinson’s, with hand tremors and speech problems; he’s hard-of-hearing and speaks limited English. Despite this, I spend 1.5 hours with R every Sunday, engaging him with sensory activities and music, including hand rubbing, clapping, dominoes, and velcro ball toss. What’s weird is over time, we empathize with the patient and know what they’ve gone through in life, as if they are conveying to us their story. It was a new sensation to distract R from his struggles and sense joy from him, however he could express it. He’d involuntarily clap, and his foot would start wagging. His smile was never clear, but his happiness always was. Sometimes, R’s 60 year old son would speak about his early life in Gujarat, relating his career struggles and emotional challenges. Understanding each patient’s background is vital to providing complete care—I hope to cultivate this as I serve the neurodivergent population. Hospice care has refined how I approach patient care, understanding that every individual has unique needs and that tailoring engagement to these needs is a necessary and useful skill to have in medicine. Additionally, my time with another patient, whom I’ll call M, was quite different, but I reached the same conclusion. She would have frequent bouts of monologuing, much to the dismay of her roommate, and she would relay a lot of personal struggles. This in a sense made it easy to connect with her as there was much to discuss.
Working with my patients this past year has truly changed my perspective on not just hospice care, but interactions (especially those far outside my age range) in general. I’ve come to realize that though they are on the brink of something terrible that might happen, they always find a reason to smile or experience joy through small things, including having us as volunteers by their side. For me, I’ve shifted my perspective on hospice care from something I thought wouldn’t really benefit me to something that has made me realize I could be more like them. It gave me a deep sense of gratitude for what I possess and what I’ve accomplished. I now see patient care as something vital to my career in medicine and have deep respect for others who involve themselves in this work and patients themselves who’ve had to overcome several obstacles. I also know how difficult it is as medical providers to be the bearer of bad news, but being able to have the conversation is an incredible skill to have, and I hope working with these patients builds a mindset conducive to working with these patients and their families.
In terms of medical school, I see great value in these experiences not just in connecting with people of different backgrounds who are disadvantaged in some way, but also getting the practice of interacting with patients in a clinical setting. Hospice volunteering helps me specifically a lot as I hope to do both research and clinical medicine. I also think hospice is often an undervalued opportunity to gain clinical experience, because terminal illness and senior assisted living is a relatively niche environment. On an application, I think admissions officers would see any experience in context of the applicant’s interests in goals—no one opportunity would be seen much more favorably than another. Since hospice volunteering is aligned with my career goals and ultimately becoming a neurodegenerative disease specialist, I think it’s super valuable.