Hours: 100+, 4 hours/ week
Supervisor: Jayme Cornell, jayme.cornell@providence.org
I've been volunteering at Providence hospital in Everett for about a year now. I started to volunteer in order to explore more about possible career paths in the healthcare field. My responsibilities as a patient and family ambassador include greeting visitors at the front desk, escorting visitors to there desired location, delivering flowers and cards to patient rooms, chaperoning ultrasound procedures, keeping the emergency waiting area organized, making sure that the wheelchairs are in designated areas and disinfecting the wheelchairs.
Volunteering at Providence has been a wonderful for me. A hospital is a perfect example of the great impact of science not only on the society but also on each individual. Understanding of science, especially the human anatomy and physiology has saved people's lives as well as greatly increased the human lifespan. However, I also learn that one doesn't need to have great understanding about biology in order to help the healing of a patient. That is why volunteers play such an important part in the holistic care of patients by creating a welcoming, comforting and safe environment for them and their family.
One of the best opportunities I get to experience during my volunteer at Providence was to observe a nurse cleaning and changing dressing for a patient with a large surgery wound. I was delivering the flowers to the patient when the nurse was about to begin her procedure. I was very interested, so she told me that I could observe the procedure if I could get the patient's permission. The patient did not mind, and hoped that I could learn something. It was the largest wound that I've ever seen, and it was relatively deep. After cleaning the wound and doing some measurements, the nurse cut the foam dressing so that the foam can fit into the wound. She explained that this is called vacuum assisted closure, which will help the wound heal faster. The foam was then sealed and connected to a small vacuum, which sucked the edema fluid from the wound. After taking this course and learning about the skin and healing of wounds, I now understand that this technique promotes healing at the cellular level as blood flow to the wound is increased as the vacuum applies a negative pressure to the wound. The human biology is interdisciplinary because all systems in the body interact with each other. The patient that let me observe the nurse change her wound dressing, for example, came into the hospital for a surgery of something different, but stayed after the surgery was successful to treat her wound.
Some of the questions I have wondered as I volunteer at Providence are:
1. How do the staff members feel about volunteers? (Since I can feel a distance between volunteers and staff in the hospital)
2. Statistically, how big is the impact of volunteers on the quality of a hospital?
3. How does a patient feel when there are students observing a procedure that is done on them?
4. How's the volunteer experience at different hospitals different? And what are the factors that contribute to the differences?
Photo of myself standing near the main entrance of the hospital
Part of what I do on my shift: taking the wheelchairs to their designated area and disinfecting them
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