Why I am at this particular Internship

There was one shift where I met two other volunteers. One of them was a girl who attended Harvard College, and the other one was a graduate student who attended Harvard Extension School. They both seemed like extremely intelligent individuals.

Who girl who attended Harvard College had already done extensive research while she was in high-school, and the male was shadowing surgeons on a regular basis.

I told them that I did not intend to go to Med-School. They asked me why I was there since this was a program intended for student planning to go to Med-School. I told them that I was studying Psychology and that I wanted to volunteer for BWH's Psychiatry Department.

I am probably one of the few students to ever do this program and not intent to go on to Med-School.

Patient Access: Shift Two

During my second shift at of Patient Access I met another student volunteer from BU. We pretty much just talked about the classes we had taken throughout the year. It was a very slow shift. Since the other volunteer was new, I went through the procedures again with her.

We got reintroduced to our supervisors Mary and Nina. we also learned about the Admitting Center right across the hall from where we volunteer.

It was a normal shift.

Patient Access: Shift One

My first shift while doing patient access was very slow. I was told that it had to do with the time of my shift. My usual shift will be on Tuesdays from 2pm to 5pm. I guess their are not many patients in the afternoon.

My supervisor are Mary and Nina. They work at a service desk and they bring patients down to surgery if there are no volunteers available.

During my first shift I got to shadow Mary to make sure I knew what was expected of me. After that I was supposed to have it memorized. It is a rather simple process.

Mary or Nina will give me the chart of the patient.
I check the patients wristband to confirm they are the right person. (I would not want to send the wrong person into a specific surgery.)
The patient follows me down to PreOp.
I check the patient in if their is someone at the front desk of PreOp.
I take the patient to their assigned bed and leave their chart on a table(next to their bed) for their doctor
Then I go to the desk at the exit of PreOp to let them know that the patient is at their bed.

For most of my shift their is a lot of free time.

Patient Access Training

This week I met up with a person named Mike for a training session on what I would be doing. Mike is also a volunteer at BWH and he attends the Evening School at Harvard.

The session did not take too long. He first told me about the basic duties of my job. I would be escorting patients, who were scheduled for surgery, down to the surgery room. There were not any patients at the time to have a practice run, but Mike did show me the correct procedures for Patient Access.

Introduction to the Program

After doing so many hours of Central Transport at BWH, I qualified to continue at BWH in their Medical Career Exploration Program. When the details were explained to me I saw it as an opportunity that I could not pass up. The Program is a commitment of nine months or more. It requires that you do a certain amount of hours in Central Transport, and then a certain amount of hours in Patient Access Services. After that you get to choose any department in the hospital in which to volunteer in. They Volunteer Services will o their best to put you in a department of your interest.

Currently I am at the Patient ACCESS stage of the program. I look forward to completing this stage so that I may volunteer on the Psychiatry department at BWH.