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…