Volunteers Key for Hospital

U.S.A. Virginia

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Volunteers Key for Hospital

By Sarah Barry / Daily Progress staff writer

July 18, 2005

Summertime used to mean taking a break from school and lazing around the pool. But for 50 high school volunteers at Martha Jefferson Hospital, summer means working hard and getting a glimpse at what could be their future career.

Every summer, Martha Jefferson accepts applications from teenagers to volunteer in the different departments of the hospital. While the volunteers spend some time doing chores such as filling out forms and changing beds, doctors and nurses work to make sure the students also get some real hands-on experience.

"They find things for us to do," said Steven A. McAlpine, a junior volunteer. As a rising senior at the Covenant School, this is his third summer volunteering. "It frees the nurses up to do something a little more urgent."

Steven's father, Dr. Stephen L. McAlpine, knows how important it is to work with the volunteers to make the experience as valuable as possible. Not only is his son a volunteer, but his daughter, Shannon, now a rising sophomore at the University of Richmond, also volunteered for three years. "You include them on the medical side," McAlpine said. "It makes their experience better."

Sometimes the volunteers see more than they'd like. "I saw a few things that a person that young shouldn't see," said Earl Vess, who volunteered at the hospital in the early 1990s. Recalling the first time he saw an enema, he thought the radiology department where he volunteered was "a torture chamber," he said.

But now, slightly more than 10 years later, Vess works full-time for the hospital, running the MRI at the Outpatient Care Center, in the same department he volunteered with. "I saw that these things actually helped people get better," he said.

Jackie Martin, who runs the volunteer program, thinks it's more than just the doctors and nurses who make the program successful. "We get some great students," she said. "Our staff loves having the young people here."

To become a volunteer, a student must complete an application and submit two recommendation letters. He or she must have at least a 2.5 GPA and agree to complete at least 50 hours of service during the summer. Martin says the program targets students who plan to go into healthcare.

For the more dedicated volunteers, the 50-hour minimum is just that. Jacob Smith, another ex-volunteer who works for the hospital full-time, completed 400 or 500 hours one summer. "I think I came in every day," he said. Smith now works at the main hospital in the radiology department, transporting patients.

But Smith, unlike Vess, only plans to work at the hospital for another year or two, until he graduates from the Old Dominion University satellite location at Piedmont Virginia Community College. "I had a really good experience," he said. "Volunteering made me realize I didn't want to go into medicine." He currently plans to go into law enforcement.

What the volunteers say makes the experience so great, and what makes many of them return for three or four summers, is the atmosphere of the hospital. "Everyone's got a smile and being friendly," Steven said. "It's just kind of contagious."

Vess echoes the sentiment, and says the positive atmosphere is part of what made him stay in the radiology department. "I see people all the time who have been here for years."

Vess' mother worked at Martha Jefferson for many years as a nurse in the oncology department. She was the one who first got Vess involved in the volunteer program.

"I used to tell her I hated it," he said. But now, with the wisdom of 10 extra years and a plan to eventually become a program director to train the next generation of MRI workers, Vess can see what a service his mother did him by forcing him to volunteer. "I used to run that whole gambit," he said. "But now, I'm like, yeah, thanks mom."

From: http://www.dailyprogress.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=CDP%2FMGArticle%2FCDP_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031783901702&path=!news

Specializes in PeriOp, ICU, PICU, NICU.

Another great article, thanks for sharing :)

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