Hello! My name is Jason Wild, and I am a rising senior majoring in Neuroscience. This summer, I am working with Metropolitan Jewish Health System (MJHS) at the Isabella Geriatric Center in Manhattan. MJHS is a non-profit health organization dedicated to senior care across New York City, with services ranging from rehabilitation to at-home nursing. At Isabella, I am experiencing direct patient care from two different perspectives: employee health and hospice care.
Two days a week, I assist in Isabella’s Employee Health Office, which provides care to the medical professionals working in the building’s nursing home. In this setting, I regularly take inventory of the nurse practitioner’s clinic, manage appointments, and work closely with employee health records. This experience has allowed me to become familiar with numerous medications, vaccines, and routine clinical practices. Additionally, I have gained insight into the extensive precautions that are taken with front-line healthcare workers to ensure the safety of their patients.
On the remaining three days each week, I visit Isabella’s hospice unit and spend valuable time with the patients. My responsibilities primarily revolve around keeping the patients company, whether that be through talking with them about their lives, discussing current events, or simply providing a soothing presence while they rest. Across the summer, I have been assigned a total of 10 patients, each of which I visit for an hour once or twice a week.
One of the most important lessons that I have learned over the summer is how to properly define hospice. Hospice care is not curative, meaning that it does not seek to heal patients. Rather, hospice can be thought of as care dedicated to maximizing comfort and dignity for patients approaching the ends of their lives. Despite this goal, knowing that one is approaching death can be deeply troubling for some patients, and often leads to feelings of depression and loneliness. As a hospice intern, my goal was to provide companionship and, as my supervisor often said, “be their last best friend.”
Through this internship, I have learned that I deeply value the interpersonal side of medicine. Clinical workers in settings such as nursing homes can often be detached from the people they are caring for due to the volume of residents. It can thus be difficult to ensure that each patient gets any true social interaction beyond being treated. The resulting isolation can negatively impact patient health, which is especially damaging in hospice. My role as an intern has shown me the impact that a friendly face can have in healthcare. Furthermore, learning about the patients’ lives has demonstrated the vitality of seeing each individual as a whole, as they are often defined primarily based on their illness or age. As I look toward a career in medicine, I plan to carry with me a holistic approach to patient interactions to promote healing from a social perspective as well as a clinical one.
For students like me that are interested in healthcare, I strongly recommend considering volunteering in hospice care. Not only does it provide you with direct patient care experience from a unique perspective that emphasizes comfort over remedies, it gives you the opportunity to form meaningful connections with those approaching the ends of their lives. I learned something new in every conversation I had, and being able to lend a listening ear has been an incredibly valuable experience.
I am thankful to the CCPA and the Jaharis Primary Care Internship Fund for allowing me to pursue this impactful experience. I am also very grateful for the team at MJHS for welcoming me into Isabella, as well as to the patients that so generously shared their time, company, and stories with me.
