- Joined
- Jun 24, 2019
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Hi! I recently started a hospice volunteering position, but the issue is that I can only visit home patients at the moment as opposed to also being able to visit patients at facilities due to COVID-19 restrictions. What this entails is that there are fewer patients to visit and many of these patients are not comfortable with having volunteers come over due to the virus causing there to be some variation in the experience I am having. I was able to visit a patient a couple of times, but due to the rise in cases, they decided that it would be best to have me stop coming in for now. I also was supposed to visit another patient, but they, unfortunately, passed away before my first visit 
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In the meantime, the volunteering coordinator offered that I volunteer at their hospice center where I can still interact with patients, but of course, the interaction is very different. Here, my responsibilities include helping nurses call patients to see how they're doing and to tell them when their aide services will be and maybe some other administrative stuff such as writing bereavement cards. I also recently called many of them for the holiday last week. It has actually been really nice to talk to them for a little bit on the phone and cheer them up since a lot of them complain of boredom! I also greet patients and their families if they decide to come in. Of course, when another patient in my area asks for a volunteer, I will return back to seeing patients face-to-face. However, my question is would it be okay to group these hours with the rest of my clinical hours? I understand that there is not much direct contact, but with COVID-19 I was wondering if this type of clinical experience would be given more weight since things are difficult right now. I personally find it incredibly rewarding and would love to include it! I, of course, would specify that some of these hours were spent doing this as opposed to seeing the patient in person. I am a bit far from applying, but it would be nice to group these hours to avoid having another AMCAS space for them. Let me know if you think this would be okay!
@Goro @LizzyM @gonnif @gyngyn @Catalystik your input would be much appreciated!!
.In the meantime, the volunteering coordinator offered that I volunteer at their hospice center where I can still interact with patients, but of course, the interaction is very different. Here, my responsibilities include helping nurses call patients to see how they're doing and to tell them when their aide services will be and maybe some other administrative stuff such as writing bereavement cards. I also recently called many of them for the holiday last week. It has actually been really nice to talk to them for a little bit on the phone and cheer them up since a lot of them complain of boredom! I also greet patients and their families if they decide to come in. Of course, when another patient in my area asks for a volunteer, I will return back to seeing patients face-to-face. However, my question is would it be okay to group these hours with the rest of my clinical hours? I understand that there is not much direct contact, but with COVID-19 I was wondering if this type of clinical experience would be given more weight since things are difficult right now. I personally find it incredibly rewarding and would love to include it! I, of course, would specify that some of these hours were spent doing this as opposed to seeing the patient in person. I am a bit far from applying, but it would be nice to group these hours to avoid having another AMCAS space for them. Let me know if you think this would be okay!
@Goro @LizzyM @gonnif @gyngyn @Catalystik your input would be much appreciated!!
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