Volunteering this weekend went great! I am so glad that I went outside my comfort zone and pushed myself to do it. I worked at the "finger stick glucose test" station which involved pricking peoples' fingers and squeezing a drop of blood onto a test strip. I also got to use my physiology knowledge and explain to people what the glucose level means and what diabetes is. Though I really did not enjoy waking up at 4:45am on Sunday, it was definitely worthwhile. It was a very long day though- at about 10am I couldn't believe I still had 2 more hours to go. The whole experience made me realize how many people are surviving without health insurance. And it made me realize that some people are really terrified of getting sick. Some people almost panicked when I told them they had elevated glucose levels. It seemed like they were thinking "what am I going to do? How am I going to pay for this?" I tried to reassure most people that it's nothing to be too concerned about (only 1 or 2 people out of the 100 I tested actually had high enough levels to be considered "pre-diabetic"). But I recommended that they keep monitoring their blood glucose, and speak to a doctor if they are concerned about it. The best part about all of this? I got 6 hours of patient care experience to put on my graduate school application! It was so easy and it felt good to be helping people who know virtually nothing about their own healthcare and don't have the means to take care of themselves. So, I signed up to do it again this Saturday. And this one is right down the street from our house at the neighborhood high school.
One aspect that was somewhat disappointing was that I didn't get a lot of interaction with healthcare professionals. I was hoping this would be a great way to meet PAs and other medical providers and learn more about what they do- maybe even do some networking and hear about some job possibilities. But I was stuck at my table the entire time, and the two other girls at my table were both in their early 20s. One was an RN, the other a licensed EMT. I was pretty unimpressed with their knowledge of basic physiology. I'm sure they both have much more practical experience than me (they were talking to each other a lot about all these different kinds of needles and stuff that I had never heard of before), but their background knowledge didn't seem very strong. I heard the RN telling a patient that insulin is an enzyme (it's not- it's a hormone). Full disclosure: I did read up on diabetes and went back to look at the chapter on diabetes in my physiology textbook. But at least I took the effort to do that. It doesn't seem like either of them thought ahead to remind themselves what diabetes is, and what the blood glucose levels mean. I also tested myself, and my reading was 79! 65-99 is normal, 100-130 is elevated, and 130 is pre-diabetic. So mine was really low. I'm still hopeful that this weekend I'll get more interaction with some PAs or doctors.
Gotta go to class!
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