One more week :)

This time during volunteering I went back to the clinic so that I can shadow the doctor again J It was a slow day since not many patients showed. The majority of the patients went for respiratory illnesses, so it was just a regular day. It is so sad to see how easily it is for little kids to acquire respiratory infections and it is even sadder to realize that the doctor can’t prescribe many drugs since medication for them is limited. I really enjoyed helping out this time since even though I had close to nothing to do I got a pretty good opportunity to analyze the setting I was in. I mean the clinic staff does a decent job in providing really good services to the community, taking into consideration the limited resources they have. I really hope that I can continue volunteering here since I love the setting and the work environment in this clinic. Till next time…

One more day of fun :)

This time during volunteering I continued shadowing the doctor at El Centro located on

Canal St

. Every time I have this opportunity I learn something new and I’m getting pretty comfortable with all the staff at the clinic. I love helping in whatever means possible since they are short on staff. I sometimes serve as the doctor’s assistant since she has lots of patients and the nurses are busy doing the paperwork. Moreover, I like how the doctor gives me the opportunity to ask whatever I don’t understand referred to the patient’s illnesses; of course we discuss this in private once she is done talking to the patient. Oh and the patients are so nice! I remember this one time when the doctor asked the patients authorization, so that I can be present during her visit and the lady and her daughter said “yeah sure, she can come in” and I went in all excited lol ok so the reason for their visit was for the teenage girl to have a physical examination done. After, the doctor introducer herself and me, she went on by saying that I was shadowing her, so that I can get a close look at the medical field and see if this is what I really want to do in the future J. I was amazed at the lady’s reaction to this, since she started persuading me to study medicine, she told me her oldest daughter is a certified nurse and she even showed me her daughters graduation photos (she had them on her cell). We started chatting about the need for bilingual personnel in the medical field and she was kind enough to give me advices. Certainly, I thanked both the lady and her daughter for allowing me to be present during their visit and I thanked the lady for her advices and for being so nice with me. At the end of the visit I felt so weird; I mean I did not know how to react to this, since a complete stranger showed interest in me continuing my studies and she was so thankful I was taking my time to volunteer. Once the patient was release, the doctor looked at me, she noticed my feeling and said “see you’re starting to get appreciation from patients and you’re not a doctor yet, it feels good right?”  My answer was “of course it feels great,” I mean you get this cool feeling that it’s just inexplicable. I’m so grateful I’m doing this service learning project since I’m discovering new feelings and new experiences I never encountered before. I hope I can continue shadowing the doctor, since I get a lot out of it =). Till next time…

One more day....

This time during my volunteer opportunity I continued helping the IT department to find the medical records software. I spend two hours doing research online about EPIC software. I was lucky to find some really good journals with helpful information on EPIC. Moreover, one of the journals was pretty specific since it gave insight into the uses and benefits EPIC has on the health field. After a brief discussion of the data I found with Scoope (IT manager of the clinic), I was offered the opportunity to shadow one of the doctors in the clinic. Obviously, I did not hesitate a moment to accept the offer and went along with Olga to shadow the doctor. I always enjoy learning as I get to see patients with the doctor. In addition, I love going to this clinic since it is a pediatric clinic and as I mentioned on my previous blogs I love kids!! Moreover, Olga and I had the opportunity to discuss with the doctor our possibilities for the brochure we have as an assignment. The doctor said that the most common disease among the clinic’s young patients is respiratory track infections. Now, all we have to do is a little bit of research in order to create our brochure. I hope that next time I go volunteer I can go back and shadow the doctor since I have so much fun =).

Last time I went to volunteer I helped with the Halloween celebration El Centro had planned for the community. It was held at De Zavala Park and it was open to the public. The purpose was to have an option for the community to celebrate Halloween in a health and safe environment and the event was a complete success  J. I was assigned to help in the food preparation station lol along with Cynthia one of El Centro workers (she’s so cool). We prepared close to 700 hot dogs!! We had lots of people present at the event. All the food was free and we were passing out hot dogs, popcorn, pizza, cupcakes, ice cream, drinks and the kids favorites candies! They even had games for the little ones and a haunted house for the not so little hahahaha. Oh and they had music on so for me it was great. I had so much fun volunteering this time that I was even singing, dancing and joking around with the other volunteers =).

 In addition, they held a costume contest for the kids. I love kids so I had a hard time deciding which one was my favorite lol but they were all cute.  It was just so much fun and I had time to chat with Lidia, who was also helping during this event. I’m glad I went since I was able to appreciate how people were so pleased to receive or form part of this event. I hope El Centro plans something like this for thanksgiving and Christmas. Now take a look at the pictures I took and see for yourself how cool volunteering is  =)

              

Best day so far...

Ok so last week I went to volunteer at El Centro located on canal st. I was assigned to work with the IT department and the doctors at the clinic on a project. The project is about choosing an electronic health record software system for all the El Centro clinics. They are currently working with SEVOCITY but they are trying really hard to get EPIC, which is a way better software, but it’s also really really expensive lol. We are currently working on finding out which software would be better for doctors/nurses to use as well as economically accessible for the clinic. So far we are comparing EPIC and EHS – Med; they are both really good but totally different so our work is to prepare a presentation for the doctors and staff to pick the best software. Thus, in order for me to be of any help I was given a look at the current software – sevocity, which is kind of simple and easy to use. It is kind of similar to PeopleSoft, which is the software I currently use at work, thus it was very easy for me to get familiar with the system =). Furthermore, once I got a familiar with the system I was given the opportunity to shadow a doctor yay!! The clinic offers pediatric services, so all we had were little patients J  I love kids!! And I think everyone noticed it since the doctor was kind enough to tell me that I can go back as many times as I want to shadow her yay!!  This was an amazing experience and I learned a lot. In one of the many patients I was able to see with the doctor was one baby that presented Mongolian blue spots, which the mother was worry since she thought, she in some form was hurting the baby and causing him bruises, but the doctor explained that it has nothing to do with that and that this condition is caused by melanocytes located deep under the skin. I got so excited shadowing the doctor and learning so much that I completely forgot I had to work that afternoon hahahaha I had to call in sick since when I realized I was suppose to work I was already 2 hrs late. Fortunately, my boss is really nice and I was able to get away with it =)  I had so much fun this time that I can’t wait to go back and see patients again J. Last Friday I was able to volunteer at a Halloween event El Centro planed, but I would tell you more about that on my next post, till next time…

4th day

Ok so this time I went back to the Centro de Corazon and to my surprise they had tons of food to give away for thanksgiving. It is amazing to see all the effort they are putting towards this project =). In this occasion they needed help organizing all the food since it was all stored in rooms but it wasn’t organized in a specific order, so we all decided to make everything easier for the time when we have to make the baskets, thus we separated the food into categories. This was pretty much all I had to do for the day, but I had lots of fun since I had the opportunity to converse with the clinic’s manager about the handout/brochure I have to make as part of my service learning project and she gave me lots of good ideas yay!! Lol  She is really excited about this project since she believes that this would benefit the patients =)  Moreover, she promised me that the next time I go back to volunteer she would arrange things so that I can have the opportunity to shadow a doctor (yay, I can’t wait to go back!!) and in this way obtain more information and decide on what specific disease I want to make my handout/brochure.  I have done some research on all five clinics of el Centro and I found out that there are many cases of diabetes, hypertension, and mental health related problems, but honestly I have no idea on what to do my brochure on L. Hopefully, after shadowing a doctor I’ll get some kind of idea on what to do it about, since I’ll get to see for myself what is it that the patients need more info about, so that I can contribute at least a little with the clinic’s goal of keeping its patients educated.

Preparing for Thanksgiving!!

My third time of volunteering went as expected :D  I had so much fun at the Houston Food Bank again lol. This time we went to get the food only, I mean we were not require to help in anything but to get the boxes of food into our vehicles. Therefore, it wasn’t as complicated as my first time. Again I got to drive my truck super full of food, but I mean literally all full of boxes of food. We took all food to the Centro de Corazon located on navigation st. and there I helped unload all vehicles and sorting the boxes in the little rooms they have to store the food. This required some physical work, and the next day I was dying of the pain hahaha, but then again you always end up with the feeling that at least you are helping to make a difference in the life of some families; plus the pain leaves with a Tylenol  :P

Anyways, I noticed that they already have lots of food to distribute to local residents for thanksgiving. This is supposed to be one major event since I heard they are making about 500 baskets of food to help underprivileged families have a nice and decent thanksgiving dinner, thus I didn’t hesitate a moment to offer my  help in making the baskets. I’m so looking forward to go back to el Centro and help in this noble and wonderful plan  J.

2nd Day

Ok so I went back to volunteer last Friday and it wasn’t as fun as I expected =(  lol  I was sent to the Eastwood clinic to help with the medical records. The Eastwood clinic has a medical and a dental clinic. The medical clinic focuses on treating diabetes, hypertension and sexually transmitted infections, while the dental clinic offers full dental exams, pediatric services and pretty much all dental services. My assignment was to check 2008 patient files in the clinic system and to make sure that the information was uploaded in the system, so that doctors could have online access to the records. This was kind of boring, but it was easy for me since I have experience working with record systems so it was easy for me to understand the program. I worked on this for about 2.5 hours and then I helped fix the clinic’s decoration, since all the brochures were disorganized and the plants decorating the clinic were actually dying! I’m looking forward to my next visit and hopefully it would be more excited.

The start of a new experience =)

I’m so happy I finally had the opportunity to start my service learning project last Friday, September 24, 2010. I’m volunteering at El Centro de Corazon located on Navigation St., which is a community-based clinic focused on providing mental health counseling services to the East End Houston area. The first time I went to the clinic to fill out the volunteer application and all paper work required I was kind of nervous since I didn’t know what to expect, but I was quickly surprised by the friendly staff and their outgoing attitude. They were so helpful and excited that their clinic was considered for this type of school-based projects J. My first assignment was to help them in a new project they were working in association with the Houston Food Bank. The project consisted of taking volunteers from el Centro de Corazon to the Houston Food Bank and help in the sorting of food products and as a result El Centro could take food provisions to distribute among the East End Houston area residents. I was amaze by the enthusiasm expressed by all the volunteers present, thus I was even more excited to be part of such a wonderful organization!! After sorting lots of boxes of food, we were finally done and ready to take some food back to the Centro; I was glad we were done, but also super tired lol at the end it was worth it since we were able to take about 10,000 pounds of food yay!! This was also the first time I had to drive my truck full of food o_O .  On our way back to the Centro I was able to get to know the group much better and I found out a lot about the clinic and its services. Once back to the Centro we unpacked all our vehicles, which were all full of food boxes and then I was able to take a look of the clinic :D.

As I mentioned before this clinic focuses on providing mental health counseling services, which includes: depression, bipolar, anxiety, trauma, ADD, domestic violence, sexual abuse, anger management, family issues, and child, family and couples counseling. As I took a look of the patient rooms I noticed that they are decorated as a common living room, thus I didn’t hesitate to ask why? And one of the workers answered that the purpose of this was to make the patient feel as comfortable and close home as possible, so that they can express all of their feelings/anxieties in a much easier way.  I think that I could be of much help to this clinic since the majority of the patients are Spanish speaking, thus they are in need of Spanish speaking personnel; also I’m willing to learn as much as possible from this experience!!

I hope that in my next visit I can be able to meet the rest of the staff and I can actually start helping in a more clinic-base environment.