First Visit in Laguna Honda Hospital Project

I returned to Laguna Honda hospital for the second time to begin my Clinical Pharmacy 112 volunteer project, but this time I met with the volunteer coordinator about my resident and visitations. I was introduced to Araceli, my coordinator, who seemed welcoming and competent. She warned me about my resident, whom she said may give me a hard time. Initially, she said that the residents, including mine, would be quarantined for the rest of the week until the nurses disinfected the ward and contained the norovirus epidemic. She explained that the virus was responsible for a type of stomach flu that included symptoms such as diarrhea.

This detail shocked me somewhat because it brought forth in my mind how easy nosocomial infections spread in hospital environments in the immunization reading to reality. This was an unfortunate circumstance of day care centers, residential homes, or any living spaces where people lived in close quarters. It is easy to breeze past this detail when you are cramming for a test, but it is much more difficult and fearful to have to live with it for the rest of your life in a hospital. Two elderly gentlemen were sitting outside in the cold and gazed at us while we walked by.

Next to them, we felt young.
To us, their sun-tanned skin and white hair made them seem old.
We are continuously being educated in one of the world’s top health sciences institutions.
They have been out of school for decades.
Many of us are working and serving patients as interns in pharmacies, encountering a flux of new faces every day.
They were the ones whom are served.
Our presence disrupted their routine lives confined to this one building.
We were moving. They were still.

My thoughts were disrupted once Araceli questioned why we were volunteering at LHH. At that moment, I felt that my answer to her question would shape her perception and the perceptions of the people she talked to about the profession of pharmacy. I told her that historically pharmacists were not trained to be sensitive, develop relationships with patients and UCSF is trying to lead a new generation of clinical pharmacists whom are capable and willing to give better quality patient counseling by learning how to care about them. This was an effort to develop our introductory pharmacy practice experience before our advanced rotations during our third year. She returned a smile and a gaze of understanding about the importance of having pharmacists volunteering in hospitals, more so than the degree to which I substantiated my claim. It was odd for me to so fervently defend the institution that I have spent the entire quarter severely criticizing.

My resident, R.L., happened to be in the lobby and Araceli introduced me to him. He was too focused on his video card game to respond immediately, but when he managed to step away from it to shake my hand. He wore a beanie and a thin flannel over a t-shirt. He had sharp eyebrows and gave me a quick smile before returning to his game. I sat next to him for the remainder of the hour just learning how this game worked. He selected his hand so fast, I kept inquiring to figure out how he determined which would give the most points. He tried to tell me that it was like second nature after playing it so many times. He was much more pleasant than his description stated: “sarcastic, likes to mock others, may be difficult. Likes Ferraris and fast cars.” This paper description seemed so far from my own interests, and I was unsure about how I would approach relating to him. But this first meeting made me not want to just give up but instead try to find something else that we could bond over.

When we were leaving, I told him that I would be back to visit perhaps on a Sunday when I am not working.