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…