Service Learning: Blog 2

My first day of service was fun. I met the other volunteers I was going to be working with, and they were all very kind and helpful. Most of them were seniors, and most of them were veterans too. Daniel, one of the other volunteers took me on as trainee so to speak. He took me with him on his runs and showed me where all the different parts of the hospital were, radiology, the laboratory, the ICU, etc. Daniel seemed to be quite the popular guy! He knew most all of the desk workers and lots of the nurses and some of the patients too. He would make sure to include all the details about each part of the hospital, what had changed recently, who worked where and what workers had relatives as patients. I didn't mind listening. He seemed to be very proud about all of his knowledge and the fact that he could remember everything. Which I could understand.
As I would make my way around the hospital, I discovered what a cheerful place it was. Everyone is very polite and nice and asking how each other is doing, making small talk here and there. Even the patients, I noticed a lot of them cracking silly jokes about the equipment they carried or about their wheelchairs. In past experiences, I have found hospitals to have dry atmospheres, where most people are quiet and the most you can get out of a person is a nod or smirk. But at this hospital it was different. I think it may be because the patients at the VA hospital share a common bond because they all served in the military. And that bond creates a family like atmostphere between the patients, staff, and volunteers.
The fact that the patients were talkative made it a lot easier to interact with them and carry on conversation. I have always been uncomfortable around sick people and hesitant because I don't want to hurt them or say the wrong thing. But most of the patients that I escorted were very nice and fun to talk to, and it put me at ease and not as nervous when I was wheeling their huge beds around the tight corners of the hospital. I realized that if you just talk to them like you would any other person, that they really appreciate it and respond well.
Although I was sent on lots of escort runs, there was down time where the volunteers and I would be in the escort room waiting to be sent out. It was fun getting to know the older volunteers. They were all pretty silly. They like to poke fun at one another and tease one another. Which made me laugh because at times they reminded me of little kids. It was nice to see their high spirits. I think that some may stereotype older people as grumpy, unfriendly, or boring. But it was nice to see the high spirted personalities of this group, they seemed to enjoy helping out so much and kind of embrace their oldness.
Working in this environment and doing service learning has helped me to gain insight into the atmostphere of a care-facility. I beleive that learning theories and concepts about communication is ineffective unless it is applied to real world situations. Service learning allows me to see how patients interact and respond to their situation, and in turn I can have that in mind during lecture and bring examples to class discussion. It also allows me to think about further areas of research or study. For instance, in class we studyed social supports and health, and when I was at the hospital, I felt like some of the patients at the hospital were creating a social support, some were related and some were friends, but as I said before, they seem to have a pre-existent bond because of their veteran status. This made me wonder if a hospital would be factored into the social support model in health communication study. Service learning, through its hands-on nature allows for an expansion of inquiry in the study of health communication theories and topics, and goes beyond the preliminary reaches of the classroom.

Service Learning: Preliminary Search

At first, I was unsure as to what route I wanted to take with the service-learning project. It was refreshing to know that this class was offering hands on work to supplement the curriculum, so I knew I wanted to make the most of it. I searched a variety of homeless shelters, abortion clinics, and early intervention teen crisis centers. Some of these programs required semester-long training programs, or travel, so I had to follow other routes that would be more accessible and fit within the time constraints for the project. That is what brought me to searching for volunteer oppurtunities at the hospitals in the area. Mercy Hospital and The University of Iowa Hospital both responded by saying they had a steady influx of volunteers in the recent months and were at capacity, which gave me a good feeling because its nice to know that there is a a bigger supply than there is demand for volunteers. The Veterans Affairs hospital, however, responded affirmatively that they needed help at the Iowa City location.
I met with Glenn, the voluntary services director at the hospital, and he introduced me to the patient escort service they sponsor at the hospital. The patient escort service is run by volunteers, and lead by a telecommunications operator who takes calls from various locations in the hospital. The operator is given instruction on a patient, package, message, or specimen, that needs to be transported to a certain location in the hospital, and the operator then assigns a worker to carry out the task. He reassured me that although the layout of the hospital would take some getting used to, the other volunteers and hospital employees are all very helpful and willing to assist with directions.
Although this was a fear of mine, I was mostly worried about transporting the patients! I was imagining nightmares of having a runaway wheelchair or disconnecting an IV, or worse, leaving a patient in the wrong spot. I tried to leave my worries aside, and thought of all the health-related procedures I would be exposed to, and most importantly, the actual patients. All of the patients at the hospital had, at some point in their lives, served in the U.S. military. For that reason I was most excited to hear stories from those times or inquire about their time spent while serving the country. Overall, I was happy with my choice to do service at the hospital and was optimistic that it would be an enlightening and fulfilling experience.