Students give time to help at 'U' hospital

By Whitney Elliott

Daily Staff Reporter

Amalia Stefanou, an RC junior, said some of her best experiences at the University have been volunteering at the University Hospitals, meeting people that have made a lasting impression on her life.

"More than anything else it's given me an opportunity to meet people I never would have met," Stefanou said. "It makes me get outside of the shell in which we don't see the people who don't have the opportunities we do."

When Stefanou met a 17-year-old girl with a baby at Mott's Children's Hospital, she realized how similar she and the girl were.

"We were almost the same age but she had to grow up so much faster. I didn't know who was more mature - her or me," Stefanou said.

More than 500 University students currently volunteer at the hospital in some way - the most popular position is with children, said Karyn Shill, coordinator of volunteer services at the University Hospitals.

Beverly Smith, coordinator of Volunteer Resources of University Medical Health Systems, said student volunteers are an integral part of the hospital.

"Most of the time in college, students are focused on grades and classes," Smith said. "Stepping outside of their boundaries is very important and meaningful to them and the people they help."

Smith said students at the University often are only surrounded by people close to their own age and enjoy their contact with people of all ages.

"One thing students tell me is that they get that multi-generational experience," Smith said.

Nancy Vangieson-Rix, a head clinical nurse at the University Hospitals, works as a liaison between the volunteers and patients, helping to familiarize volunteers with the hospital.

"Students all have such enthusiasm. They are young and excited and interested in everything here," Vangieson-Rix said, adding that patients and nurses appreciate students who give their time to the hospital.

"Sometimes when we have patients that are just a little disoriented or anxious - we've had plenty of volunteers who sit and talk with the patients who are very appreciative," Vangieson-Rix said.

Nursing freshman student Paula Graff volunteers through Project Community in the orthopedics and trauma burn unit at the University Hospitals.

Graff said she tries to help waiting families as much as she helps patients. Graff remembered an elderly woman whose husband had been at the hospital for two weeks. The woman was touched to receive just a cup of coffee from Graff.

"I loved helping her," Graff said. "It made me feel happy to help her out and tend to her needs because she's just as important as the patient who's in the hospital bed."

Another time, Graff said she was feeding a woman who she described as being grumpy and distant, but she remembered that as she talked to the woman, trying to make her feel better, she came to understand that the woman felt helpless because she wasn't able to feed herself.

"She told me that she was a teacher and it was a hard transition to go from her tending to other people to having other people tend to her," Graff said.

After having stayed at the hospital, Graff said she felt like it is her turn to help others feel more comfortable in the hospital.

"I spent the majority of my childhood in the hospital. I have memories of nurses helping me, and I look back on it and think of how much I could have really feared the hospital but I didn't because these people were so nice to me," Graff said.

Working with trauma patients, the emotions run high, according to Graff, but this only inspires her to go right back the next week and help more patients.

"I find myself getting really attached to patients. Sometimes I go home and cry because I know the person I saw today won't make it. But it gives me that much more motivation to do everything I can the next week to help patients and their families," Graff said.

Being in a one-on-one situation with patients has helped Graff with her people skills and assured her that she wants to make this her career, she said.

"It really helps me analyze what I do during my volunteering and I learn what I can do better. I'm also so much more sensitive toward people's needs. It makes my problems so minuscule," Graff said.

Smith also said students who volunteer can benefit from their work.

"Students leave with a better sense of self and a better sense of well-being," Smith said.

Kristina Capiak, an Art and Design sophomore, said the long-lasting relationships she forms with patients in the pediatric cardiology overflow unit are an important part of her volunteer work.

"With most patients, their parents work. It makes the patient feel more comfortable when someone they know is there," Capiak said. And conversely, "It gives (parents) the assurance that someone they know is taking care of their child."

Capiak said she had the opportunity to give a baby its first bottle when a nurse was busy. The baby's mother traveled every night from Toledo to see him.

"At that time, you may not know you're helping out, but when (the patient's) parents thank you five times for something so small, you feel like you've really made an impact," Capiak said.

Smith agreed that the volunteers impact the lives of people who stay in the hospital.

"Many adults, who are from far away, are very grateful to have a companion in those who volunteer for the hospital," Smith said.

ALEX WOLK/Daily

Volunteer Cary Belen, a Kinesiology senior, works yesterday at stocking shelves and refilling dosages in the Mott Children's Hospital Inpatient Pharmacy.