Finishing the Service-Learning

I emailed Sam to email my volunteer hours directly, saving the trouble of printing out the form and going to the clinic to get it signed.

This semester has just flown by, and I can't believe the Med Micro final is in a week. The service learning aspect of the course has by far been one of the most interesting parts of my college education to date. I feel like I am leaving the course not only with new knowledge about diseases relevant to everyday life but also with knowledge about health care at an underserved clinic.

New experiences and realizations I gained this semester range from volunteering at Art with Heart to learning the greater necessity of medical profession Spanish. I need to learn some more working Spanish before I go to El Salvador in order to ease the experience there.

Overall, this service-learning experience has been well worth the effort and should definitely be continued in the future.

Swine Flu

Panic about Swine Flu is setting in as schools close around Houston, and weekend events are being canceled. One girl at Episcopal High School in Bellaire was diagnosed with Swine Flu, but she has been treated and fully recovered. The one toddler who died due to Swine Flu apparently spent the day at the Galleria the day before he started showing symptoms of Swine Flu. This caused local news outlets to react with their usual scare tactics, causing pandemonium in communities.

Education Rainbow Challenge is a major event that occurs once in the fall and once in the spring where elementary and middle school children compete in math and science competitions. The American Chemical Society always volunteers at the event and show chemistry demonstrations for the kids and parents. However, due to this Swine Flu scare, the event has been canceled. This is such a shame since approximately 600 children attend the event, and UST always brings about 60 - 90 volunteers.

I have been paying close attention to reports on Swine Flu, reading emails from the embassy in El Salvador about the situation there. As of right now, there are no reports of Swine Flu in El Salvador, but I am slightly worried about traveling for the medical mission trip in two weeks. Stay tuned to find out any updates!

Art with Heart

Last night was the 3rd annual Art with Heart fundraiser for San Jose Clinic. I arrived at 4:30p.m. to volunteer, and I ended up learning how to use the electronic tablets used for the art auction. I would be working the tables throughout the night to help people make bids on items.

I was on my feet all evening as people came up to me asking for help, placing bids, and checking on the status of bids already placed. I absolutely loved a painting titled "Rose" and was actually interested in bidding on it myself. It ended up going for $240 at the end of the night. Overall, the event raised almost $70,000. Personally, I thought they would've raised more, but there was a lot of art that went unsold at the end of the night, which was slightly sad.

The Cardinal showed up, and they had a live auction of his portrait, which went for $5000. The man who won it ended up donating the portrait to San Jose, so that was a really touching moment. Matress Mac of Gallery Furniture was actually the speaker for the live auction, and he was very funny.

I am really glad I got to be a part of Art with Heart as both a volunteer from San Jose and a volunteer from Tri-Beta. I met a lot of great people, saw workers from the clinic outside of the professional setting, and got to see local artists who actually put their work into the auction. It was a different experience, and I'll be interested in coming next year as either a volunteer or bidder.

Art for Heart

Sam Sherman came to UST yesterday at noon to train volunteers on using electronic tablets for the auction fundraiser to be held on Saturday, April 25th. Tri-Beta members will he helping with the auctioning and food running. It is our major volunteer event for this spring semester.

I was unable to make the training session yesterday because I had to go to the Children's Museum for the ACS Earth Day event, but I will be on the food station at Art for Heart. I look forward to helping out with this fundraising event for such a good and deserving clinic.

Easter Holiday

San Jose was closed for the Easter Holiday, so I was not able to volunteer this week either. However, I will be more involved in the coming weeks since Tri-Beta is working with San Jose for their Art with Heart fundraiser. Now that I'm familiar with the place, I am excited to help in any way I can.

The global economic recession has really hit home for me lately and made me realize just how much the health care industry is affected by it. My mother owns her own plastic surgery clinic, but with the down economy, people are not coming in for elective surgery. Patients cannot afford unnecessary surgery or time off from work, and this has really hit the company hard.

Plastic and cosmetic surgery runs under differing circumstances compared to health care covered by insurance and extremely differently than a place like San Jose. Events lately have me really looking at the logistics behind organizations and how things are really run from a financial aspect. This is the side of health care people do not see.

Anyways, happy Easter!

My Own Health

It was a long week, and I had a lot of personal things going on which meant I could not make it to San Jose this week. It's a long story, interesting yet irrelevant to this blog. However, I definitely plan on volunteering this coming week.

My time at San Jose has been really eye-opening, and I'm truly glad that I had the opportunity to volunteer there this semester. What began as a service learning assignment for Medical Microbiology turned into an enjoyable and highly informative real-life experience in a different aspect of the medical field.

No matter what emotional things happen in my life, it all seems so trivial to the realities of low-income health care. I feel lucky to have been given so much in my life, and I do not plan on taking it for granted. If anything, I am lucky to have health insurance and not be burdened by the possibilities of outrageous health care bills should an emergency occur.

Comparing my parents' plastic surgery clinic to something like San Jose, the two are drastically different in the way they are run, and each has their own unique good and bad aspects. My mother recently talked to me about our business, and the economy has hit it hard. People just do not have the income anymore to have as much voluntary plastic surgery. An underserved clinic like San Jose, however, is always in need because they provide primary care necessary for maintaining basic health.

Easter break is almost here, and I will have more time not only to volunteer but also contemplate on a lot of things about San Jose, medicine, and life in general.

Extended Spring Break

I have been traveling like mad the past two weeks. I left for New York the morning of March 14th, took a train to Boston the morning of March 17th, flew back to Houston the night of March 19th, was in town for the 20th, and flew to Salt Lake City for the ACS National Meeting the morning of March 21st. I just got back from Salt Lake the night of March 24th. Absolutely exhausted, missing my own bed, and having piles of work to do, I was not able to volunteer this week but shall resume next week when things calm down a bit.

This semester flew by, and it is almost April. Now that I am familiar with San Jose, I am excited for the Tri-Beta volunteer event where we help with the Art with Heart auction they are having on April 25th. It is a big fundraiser for them, and I am glad to have the opportunity to be a part of it this year.

Commenting on the new setup of the prep area for vitals that I described in the last entry, I personally like being out front in the desk area with other people, but it gets crowded behind the reception desk. It is supposed to help them increase speed and efficiency, but then they have to run papers back to the medical records room. It may be a trial run, so we will see if they keep the new setup for an extended time.

See you next month!

Fourth Week

Unable to make it this past Wednesday morning when I usually volunteer, I went to San Jose to volunteer from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. yesterday. The clinic is much different in the lunch and afternoon hours compared to the early morning rush.

I was assigned to triage and vitals again, but they showed me the new way they were doing things. In order to increase efficiency, they were doing triage and vitals out front in the reception area, running medical records to the back, and then calling the patient back. Before, they would do triage and vitals in a prep room, send the patient back out to the waiting area, and then call them back in for their appointment.

Since it was a slower afternoon, they let me take over for a receptionist/EMT who was temporarily taking on the responsibility, and I did the triage paperwork and vitals for each patient that came in myself. I learned about their computer system and looking up patient information, asking about medications, medical history, and problems, and picked up a few more useful phrases of medically-related Spanish.

Usually working in the back in the exam rooms, it was a nice change to work out front in the reception area getting to know everyone there. I love the people at San Jose. They are all incredibly kind, helpful, and funny. It contrasts so drastically with the high-stress and colder environment of a hospital clinic. That was a pleasantly surprising observation.

I will not be able to volunteer next week since I am going to New York and Boston for Spring Break. I leave Saturday morning and come back Thursday night. I spend Friday in Houston but then leave Saturday morning for Salt Lake City for the American Chemical Society national conference. I'm excited!

Reflection

I did not volunteer this week because something came up on Wednesday morning, the time I usually go to San Jose Clinic. However, I have thought quite a bit about my time there and posed some difficult questions to myself that really do not have an answer.

How do you cope with being in the situation of not having health care yet still having to take care of a growing family? What would you do if there was no such institution as the San Jose Clinic? How do you feel once you are able to have health insurance and no longer need to go to an underserved facility?

These are often the tougher aspects of society and being a medical professional that you do not think about upon first working to become a doctor. It has been truly an eye-opening experience working there these past few weeks. Every patient is incredibly grateful to see the doctor and has been unfailingly polite and kind to me, just a college volunteer.

Having worked in a family practice and a plastic surgery clinic, the patients at San Jose are much more patient and understanding than patients at the "regular" clinics who so often complain about the slightest inconveniences. People so easily take for granted their situation in life and never take a step back to see just how much they have. Doctors say they want to help people, but they are spoiled commonly by the upper echelons of health care and patients. They forget about the lower percentiles of the economic bracket because they become so self-involved in their microcosm of experience.

This may come off as a bit of a self-righteous rant, but it still proves true nonetheless. Working at the San Jose Clinic has made me thankful for all the advantages I have been given in life and the ability to see the opposite end of the health care spectrum. I truly enjoy having this assignment for class because it is a real life-learning experience.

Third Week

Today was pretty slow in the morning, and I went about doing the same routine as the previous two weeks, taking vitals of the patients. It was quite a bit slower this morning compared to last week, so there was a lot more down time.

I learned about running labs since I had extra time this morning and what copies and signatures are required on certain forms. I also met more of the doctors that volunteer regularly at the clinic as well as the one doctor that is paid and on staff four days a week.

The most prevalent conditions were still the same as previous weeks, but we did see more orthopedic patients with back pains today. Otherwise, patients were mostly diabetics.

I did get a response back from Eric Roland of Legacy Clinic. He said that if I was still interested, I could go by their clinic on Montrose and fill out a volunteer application, and he'll review applications after May 3rd when he gets back into his office. I believe I'm still interested in volunteering there to give me a change of pace and some more new experiences in health care, specifically working with HIV/AIDS patients.

Second Week

Today was a lot busier than last week, and I didn't have a moment to rest all morning. I went through the same routine of triage and taking vitals. I have gotten very proficient at taking blood pressure and knew to take my own stethoscope today that I got from my father.

Some patients actually recognized me from last week, and I met a lot more regulars that come to the clinic several times a month. There were no incredibly prevalent infectious diseases in any of the patients that came in this morning aside from a common cold. The most common condition was still diabetes, followed by high blood pressure. Often, the visit is just a follow-up or needing a refill on medication.

I shadowed the same Sister this morning, and talked a bit more with the medical coordinator, which was nice. I'm starting to feel more comfortable in the clinic, and they're allowing me more freedom and responsibilities, taking vitals and triage by myself.

One of my favorite parts of the morning, aside from meeting some of the really nice regular patients, was using some of the Spanish I've learned from 4 years in high school and 1 year of Spanish classes in college. The Sister does not speak Spanish, so she needed help conveying some of the questions and information to the patients who do not speak any English. It was definitely an interesting aspect of my volunteering today.

I've decided to get a book on basic Spanish for medical professions to start looking over because it would be good for my general knowledge. About 80 - 90% of patients at San Jose speak primarily Spanish, so it will really help ease my ability to work there this semester.

Overall, I really enjoyed my second week at the clinic, much more than my first!

First Day

Today was my first day volunteering with the San Jose Clinic. I worked from 8:30 - 10:30 a.m. Since I previously worked in a family practice and have some experience, they let me spend the morning taking vitals of all the patients.

As Sam predicted, Wednesday was a lot slower than what I observed on Monday, and parking was not an issue for me this morning. I arrived and signed in, and she took a picture of me for my ID. She then let me follow a Sister around learning about the basic run of things. I spent most of my time in the prep room taking height, weight, temperature, bp, and pulse.

They have a primarily Hispanic patient demographic who often speak very little English. I have a basic knowledge of Spanish, but I could use a refresher for more medically focused Spanish. Though not an infectious disease, the most prevalent condition amongst patients is Diabetes. Often they are there to see a podiatrist.

When I worked in the family practice, the most common condition proved to be gout, also known as the "rich man's disease" since rich foods and alcohols cause a buildup of uric acid in the joints, causing the pain and swelling of gout. In this underserved clinic, this proves the opposite case since most are diabetic or have high blood pressure and are taking many different medications.

I still have not heard back from Legacy, so I'll need to try and contact them again. I would like to volunteer at Legacy on Mondays and San Jose on Wednesdays. So far, I am really enjoying my experience and learning a lot about the lower end of the health care spectrum. I cannot wait to go back next week and volunteer again.

Informational Tour

This morning I had a brief informational tour at 9:30a.m. with Samantha Sherman of the San Jose Clinic. Despite Mondays being their busiest day, she was incredibly warm and welcoming. She provided more background on the clinic that added to what I previously learned from their website.

What surprised me most was they have a pretty extensive specialty care unit. Dermatology, endocrinology, cardiology, dentistry, and even a laboratory are present in the clinic amongst many other things. I really hope I can shadow doctors from all the different specialties. The parking was a nightmare at the clinic, but she said it gets better as the week progresses and things get a bit slower.

We sat down in her office and talked for a bit, going through my application. I begin volunteering on Wednesday morning from 8:30 - 10:30 a.m. It might be difficult to get a lot of patient interaction since so many of the patients speak primarily Spanish. However, she said that she would speak to the medical coordinator and have me spend time interacting with patients, working with MA's, triage, as well as data entry work and other various projects.

I am definitely excited for my first day of volunteering!

First Response

I finally heard back today from Samantha Sherman of the San Jose clinic, and they are starting informational tours next week. I replied that I am able to come in for their 30 minute session on Monday morning. She accidentally forgot to attach all the volunteer information and forms to her email reply, so I am now waiting for that paperwork to fill out and bring with me on Monday.

I am incredibly eager to begin volunteering already and plan to go far beyond just the assigned 10 hours. This service learning credit proves important to more than just my grade but rather to my intended life path. I would really like to shadow physicians working at a place like the San Jose Clinic. They epitomize the selflessness and nobility of the medical profession, so few learning experiences can be more valuable than working with and analyzing these people.

Hopefully, Sam shall get back to me tomorrow so that I may get everything ready for the beginning of this semester's volunteering starting Monday!

The Beginning

Upon receiving this assignment, I loved the opportunity to incorporate service learning and clinical experience with theory-based lecture. A lab course supplementing a lecture is one thing, but actual clinical experience, whether it be filing or directly dealing with patients, proves something entirely different and far more valuable.

I plan on going to medical school and becoming an oncologist, so any real-life involvement is crucial. I grew up immersed in the medical field but never an underserved area. My experience deals with plastic and reconstructive surgery, orthopedic surgery, and oncology. I want to broaden my exposure to all different types of health care.

On Wednesday afternoon, I inquired into volunteering at the San Jose Clinic and the Legacy Community Health Services Clinic. The San Jose Clinic offers various primary health care services which interest me, and Legacy works with HIV/AIDS patients as well as treating sexual health and other primary care services, sparking my interest further. I fully expect this semester to prove interesting in diversifying my views on the medical field.