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.