Being a hospice volunteer has been instrumental in improving my understanding of the death and dying process, as well as in teaching me how to interact with actively dying patients and their families. Prior to becoming a hospice volunteer, I was completely unfamiliar with the dying process. I had done clinical volunteering before, but the patients were simply ill, not actively dying. However, I knew that learning how to deal with death and dying is a very important part of being a physician, and that first sparked my interest in becoming a hospice volunteer.
Having now spent the time volunteering in hospice, I can say that I have learned so much from this experience that will be very beneficial in my future medical career. Additionally, this semester I am taking a very interesting class called “Death and the Healthcare Professions.” In this class, we have examined the scientific, religious, and societal aspects of the dying process. I believe that being a hospice volunteer has allowed me to share some unique insights with my classmates and taking the class has improved my ability to work with dying patients.
I believe that the most important thing I have learned about death and dying from being a hospice volunteer is that the dying process is unique to each patient. Exactly how any patient wants to die can vary based on cultural values and religious beliefs. Because of this, it is very important for healthcare providers to respect a patient’s dignity and autonomy during the dying process. This will ease the burden of death on the patient and his or her family and may give the family some closure knowing that their loved one died with dignity. Consequently, I found the third prompt we received about the cultural aspects of dying to be particularly useful. Cultural knowledge and competence are very important qualities for physicians to possess. As a physician, I would not want to offend any of my patients’ religious beliefs or seem ignorant during in a matter as important as end-of-life care. Therefore, it is important that I have some knowledge of different cultural and religious beliefs about death and dying, while being able to avoid stereotyping my patients based on the cultures and religions they are a part of.
Another helpful resource improving my ability to communicate with dying patients is Being Mortal by Atul Gawande. Though I have not read the entire book, I have read several chapters for my “Death and the Healthcare Professions” class. I believe Gawande is a great storyteller; his writing is both entertaining and easy to read, while at the same time teaching important lessons. One important lesson I have taken from Gawande is that as physicians, we are treating people, not diseases. I think that as a physician, it is easy to think of treatment as a battle between the doctor and the disease, but this is very dehumanizing for the patient, who is reduced to the battlefield. The stories in Being Mortal have taught me that empathy is a very important quality for physicians, and, in practice, I must not forget about the human side of medicine.
I believe that I have grown very much as a person over this past year. Before becoming a hospice volunteer, I was unfamiliar with, and very afraid of, dying. It was particularly difficult when my first patient that I had gotten to know on the hospice unit passed away. The death caught me by surprise, and I became quite emotional about it. However, as a gained more experience in dealing with death, I began to accept that it was a natural and important process, and not something to be afraid of. I believe that I will continue to volunteer with dying patients in the future, as I believe that the skills I have learned can help a person or a family dealing with death. In fact, next Fall, I hope to volunteer in the Hospital Elder Life Program (HELP) at West Penn Hospital. So, I am very grateful for all I have learned through being a hospice volunteer, and I hope that the patients that I worked with are grateful for my service.