School: University of Pittsburgh

In the beginning, the idea of visiting a hospice was exciting yet incomprehensible to me. As an individual who has never experienced a significant loss of a loved one, I have never been placed in a situation where an impending death was constantly on the radar. Hence, when I was accepted into the Pre-Med Hospice … Continue reading “A Holistic Approach to Patient Care”

Throughout my experience as a hospice volunteer for the 2016-2017 school year, I learned not only a lot about the patient care aspect to death and dying, but also the spiritual. Growing up as a devoted Christian (and currently am today), I was always taught that death was not something to fear, but rather to … Continue reading “First Experiences with Hospice Patient Care”

As an international student from China, whose first language is not English and who has never had any previous experience of how hospice works, this VA hospital program definitely is very meaningful to me. Originally, I thought hospice simply meant caring for people in hospital, just as what volunteers normally did in every hospital. But … Continue reading “From country, culture to death”

Throughout the year, the Pre-med Hospice Program has allowed me to see a different side of medicine. A caring, patient-oriented side of healthcare in which death is mourned, but accepted. It has shown me that sometimes the best medicine is not full of interventions and aggressive treatments, but rather making patients as comfortable as possible … Continue reading “My Hospice Experience”

I can say undoubtedly that this experience has changed my life. Speaking with full disclosure, my first day at the unit I was shell-shocked. Most of the patients were non-responsive, the atmosphere was silent with only a few moans due to the pain of being moved. In most hospitals, volunteers talk with patients and walk them … Continue reading “The lady in room 441”

I was pretty nervous when I started volunteering in hospice care. Looking back, I guess I just didn’t know what to expect. I thought it wouldn’t be much different from my previous volunteer experiences in the ER and ICU, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. On one of my first nights as a volunteer, … Continue reading “Hospice Reflection”

This program affected me more than I could have ever expected when I first applied. I remember being really anxious about if the nurses would be mean, fitting it into my schedule, and mostly about being around patients on the verge of death, as I had never seen a dead body before. I was unsure of how … Continue reading “An Unexpected Interaction”

Beginning from the first meeting for our Hospice volunteering group, I knew this experience would be different than any other I had had in my undergraduate years. What stuck with me was the message of treating the whole person in Hospice, meaning not only the physical aspects of health, but the spiritual too. This idea … Continue reading “Hospice Volunteering Reflection”

I have volunteered in hospitals in the past, completing tasks such as making beds, moving patients around in wheelchairs, and running blood samples to the lab across the hospital. My experience in the hospice unit this year has been different than this, in the best way possible. Instead of sitting and waiting for a task … Continue reading “A Unique and Life Lesson Providing Experience”

I never wore bright colors to the hospice. Red and white polos remained in my closet while black and grey came out. Wearing vibrant and seemingly happy colors in a somber space was disrespectful of the difficult end of life issues that patients and their families were making. Instead of asking if it was appropriate, … Continue reading “The Small Gesture”