The Final Stretch...of this Part of my Life.

Well, as my last weeks of the semester come to a close I really believe that I have changed this semester. All of my efforts, academic, athletic, community, and family have paid off. I have learned so much this semester and I believe it was due to the fact that I was continuing to push myself beyond my comfort zones and keep striving to be the best I can be.

My volunteering has served as a large part of my optimism. Whenever I am feeling sad, I think about how I am thankful for the life I have and my opportunities. 

My academics have helped me learn the knowledge that will be useful for my future career and life in general. 

My athletics and Ironman training have pushed my limits and continually reminded me of what I can do when I set my mind to it. 

My family has stood by me and supported me the whole way, never wavering. 

All these things have come together to allow me to grow greatly as a person. I have created much higher standards for myself after this semester. I now have serious goals in medical school, and serious goals for my own achievements and well-being. 

These themes also form a web, greater than the sum of its parts, like the German term, Gestalt. I am now more than just these things I have listed, and as I see my life in a whole new perspective, I understand that the whole world is open to me. I have become someone wiser, someone kinder, and someone who now sees the world from different eyes.

As the sun sets on my undergraduate career, I remember something a close friend of mine told me about my future priorities. He told me that I would be successful and I would achieve my goals, yet he also told me that in the midst of all this hard work, I should remember my number ONE priority...to always "enjoy life."

Inspirations and Aspirations

This week I was unable to volunteer yet again due to a medical school interview that I had this weekend. It was at UT Southwestern and I chose to go early on Friday morning for a tour of the hospital and an information session about the school.

UT Southwestern is a great medical school, the students there are extremely happy and all the faculty I spoke with seemed to want nothing more than your happiness and success. The school reminded me of St. Thomas because of the high number of faculty to students which allows for a fantastic connection between mentors and the students.

I have never been so inspired for success in my entire life. After seeing the students at UTSW, and hearing their stories, I have had a strong passion in my blood to make a huge difference. One of the students spoke about how he wanted to create a non-profit organization which helps kids recover in the hospital by providing musical instruments and instructors for them. He told us how his idea was quickly approved and implemented by the faculty at UTSW, and he managed to raise $25,000 to begin his foundation and start making a difference. 

This student was able to implement his idea so quickly! I was amazed and inspired. I wanted nothing more than to think of the biggest contributions that I could make. Ever sense I returned from my trip, I have been thinking about my future in a more profound way than I ever have. I want to help others achieve their goals, and I want to achieve my own goals of starting a clinic, or foundation, or some other large contribution to the health care field.

It is a logical fallacy for one to suggest he is good at helping others achieve their goals, when he cannot even achieve his own goals. I had this in mind during my bike ride this morning. I am in the latest stages of training for my Ironman Triathlon, and it is a goal I have set for myself over the past 6 months. I know that this Ironman will show me how I can truly accomplish what I set my mind to, and it will show me how I have changed as a person. 

As my determination would falter during my ride, I thought to the impact which I want to make on the lives of others. I did not want to let them down. I wanted to show them that you can achieve your goals with a proper plan and a strong will. I was fueled by this desire to help others, and this allowed me to continue. 

I completed my longest and most difficult training day which I will have before my Ironman race, and it was thanks to the students and faculty at UTSW who inspired me to be the best I can be. I was the one who decided to pursue the Ironman, yet I knew I would need the help of others to keep me going. Seeing the students and hearing their success stories made me want to accomplish similar goals of my own. 

I plan on being very active on campus at whichever school I choose to go to. I want to volunteer and get an early start on honing my patient care skills. This will help me decide what my goals and aspirations will be. I have thought of starting volunteer clinics, health clinics, and non-profit organizations, and I know that in time, I will realize which of these I will want to pursue. At that time, I will set my mind to the goal as I have in the past. I will focus on it, and not stop until I achieve it. Using the help of others, I will be motivated to continue with my goal until it becomes a reality. 

I am glad that I can write this down as well, so that when I am feeling down, I can turn to my blog and remember the feeling I have now. I want to remember the passion so that I can light the fire when it goes out. 

I will aspire and I will inspire.

Busy Busy

Last week I was unable to volunteer due to the Apoptosis Lab, yet I still thought about the importance of the work I do. 

I can relate volunteering to psychology, and the many interesting benefits, mentally and physically, of using your time to help others. I learned about the different stages of life in my psychology class, and I learned that as people age, they start to wish that their life was meaningful. They begin to ponder their history and think about the lives they impacted and the impact they had on this world. This is called the "integrity" stage of life, and I think it is a big part of wisdom.

We associate age with wisdom, and those who are older, often are very happy to see young people helping out with services and society. Perhaps they see the individuals and believe that they truly understand the feelings of integrity as the older individuals are feeling, yet I feel it simply primes us to a life of good deeds. I can personally say that although I am truly feeling the benefits of helping people, I am not at a stage in my life, as depicted in my psychology textbook, where I am strongly considering only the impact I have on others.

This will surely change, and is already changing and an increasing rate. For example, I was speaking to my brother in law this weekend about what it means to be happy, and we were discussing that you should choose a career in which you will be satisfied and happy. 

Part of the reason why I want to go to medical school, aside from my interests in the human body and person, is because I know that it will be a truly rewarding experience which will give me unique life experiences. Those who are closest to me, who are approaching the integrity stage of their lives, realize that I have an opportunity to pursue a career where I will obtain high levels of mental and emotional benefits from simply the idea that I am helping those who are in need.

I am excited to continue my pursuits on to medical school, and I hope that I can seek what I am looking for, in the correct field, which will balance my future career with my personal interests, happiness, and my later stages of integrity when I look at all those who I helped in the past.

Knowledge is life

It has come to my attention throughout my experiences volunteering in many settings characterized by low awareness of health care ailments. In my trip to El Salvador and my volunteering this semester and last semester, I have seen many people who don't know exactly how to live a healthy life. 

An interest of my own revolves around nutrition, and I have found that many diseases including heart disease and type II diabetes can be induced by a improper diet. I have talked to many patients at various clinics and especially on the subject of nutrition, many still rely on grandma's special secret triple fried chicken for most of their meals. The concept of maintaining a healthy diet is something that I have been raised with. I have taken for granted the fact that my parents taught me what it means to eat a healthy diet. My mother, being a nurse, has instilled many good values in me in regards to eating a proper balance of macronutrients and micronutrients. 

This subject inspires me to make my health awareness brochure on something that is a wide spread health concern, yet relatively easy to mitigate - proper nutrition. I would like to discuss how nutrition plays a key role in maintaining healthy energy levels and can help prevent heart disease and diabetes, which are two wide spread health concerns. 

I am happy to say that society as a whole has been largely shifting to a healthier lifestyle characterized by better nutrition. Events such as 5k and 10k runs, as well as marathons and triathlons have become more popular among the common person, and men and women of all ages are now participating in their first active events. This greater awareness of being healthy is also accompanied by a healthier awareness of eating healthy. Food stores such as My Fit Foods have sprung up around town, and many restaurants have now been offering a healthy low-carb side menu along with their original ones. 

Yet, I feel like this awareness only go so deep into certain socioeconomic groups, and the lower levels are not as exposed. The key is to make people aware on all levels so that they may understand the benefits of living healthy. I am excited for my brochure and I want it to be something that truly raises awareness and captures the attention of the readers, with also easy methods of helping them switch their unhealthy meals with slight variations to make them healthier. I want to also note some activities that they may participate within their community to help them integrate into the growing community of active health awareness individuals.

Healthcare

I understand that I am making a big difference in the lives of many people by helping out at the local clinic, yet I have to admit that it is hard to see the big picture sometimes. With my medical school interviews approaching, I have been thinking about the larger picture, the health care system of America, and the new health care system instated by Obama. I wonder what the long term ramifications will be for these systems, which I have to admit, I am no expert on. I do believe that many people do not have access to healthcare and this is also mitigated by the fact that they have no medical insurance, and cannot afford any. Yet, I also know that there are many who cheat the system and will affect the new plan in a negative way. I guess the big question would be, "what am I trying to accomplish?" I believe that America's citizens should receive amazing health care and it should be representative of our country's beliefs of freedom of speech and liberties. Combining my recently acquired knowledge in my history class with my ethical knowledge from my philosophies, I have been pondering what it means to be American. America was indeed built on an idea of a country for the people, and wouldn't it make sense that the people want healthcare? I have also spoke with many of my co-workers from my internships over the summer, and some enlightened me with the similar health care system in Canada. Although healthcare was less expensive in Canada, it was often hard to receive that healthcare in a quick and timely manner. This makes me wonder if it is possible to have health care for all, while still having everyone treated quickly and to their desired pace. More and more I am seeing a longer patient wait outside of offices, yet we are changing as a society to expect this long wait. I have seen the wait in other countries such as El Salvador, and know that many people wait an entire day to be simply seen by a doctor. I am excited to learn more about the system and it can be improved. I know that these things are very important now, although they may not seem so, because soon I will be one of the many enforcing this system as I practice healthcare in America. I look forward to gaining new experience which will give me a better understanding of what I think is best for the people, and I will look for ways to ensure that the best is given, and we have the most optimal health care system.

The Idea of Positive Outcomes

While working with the paperwork and files that are necessary in the administrative side of the Legacy Community Health Care clinic, I often find myself pondering and pensively thinking about how my small deeds ripple in the community. I know that often times, it doesn't take much work to really help someone out, and make them very grateful. An example of this was observed during my internship this summer, where the nurses were asking me to help them save some images and convert file types for them on the computer. Something that had taken them many hours to figure out on their own, I was able to accomplish in a few minutes due to my experience with computers. The nurses were extremely grateful for my help and even though I didn't feel as if I worked as hard, I came to understand an interesting concept. The concept is one which involves doing good deeds and helping others. It can be seen in all kinds of work, even in my paper work filing at the Legacy Community Health medical records. Many things come together to make me well suited for this position, things that I would not normally think of, such as my drive to help, motivation, finger dexterity, and able to maintain alertness during mundane tasks. This makes me able to be more efficient than some of the older employees and makes them appreciate my work more.

This concept which I was pondering is closely related to another idea which I have been thinking about for a while. I first coined it "the idea of positive outcomes", to myself. An example is one such as, I have left over food in my apartment, spaghetti and meatballs, in this circumstance. My roommate just gets back from working out, and he goes to the refrigerator and sees my left over spaghetti. He asks me if he can eat my spaghetti, which he is craving dearly, and at first I remember that I love spaghetti and I will probably eat it later, but I think again and note that he will get a greater positive benefit from the spaghetti than I will. If I had eaten the spaghetti later on, I would have been merely consuming it for sustenance, because it happened to be in my fridge, and I may assign it an arbitrary positive outcome of "+1". Yet if my roommate is allowed to eat my spaghetti, especially when he is dearly craving it, it will yield to him a greater positive outcome, lets say "+3". Therefore because my roommate craved the spaghetti more than me, there was a net gain of positive energy after I allowed my roommate to enjoy it. The lack of spaghetti later did not upset me, and in fact, there was additional positive energy fabricated from what seemed like nothing after my roommate told me how much he loved being able to eat the spaghetti after he worked out and how "it really hit the spot". This made me feel good, and it was because he felt good. I believe these thoughts are the basis for all volunteering and donating your personal time and energy. Every time I can give to someone who is in greater need, which will yield a greater positive outcome, I do so. It is amazing how such philosophical thoughts can come from simply working in a room full of medical records, but I enjoy the time to think, and I am eager to continue developing my ideas on what creates happiness and positive thoughts in the world.

Legacy Community Health

I spoke with Ashley Turner, the volunteer coordinator for the Montrose Legacy Community Health Clinic, and she showed me around the Clinic where I would be helping out. I was helping out with mainly filing paper work and administrative assistance, yet I could not help but feel to be a part of something bigger. It was such a great feeling knowing that I was working for my own time, and that others were very excited for me to just offer my time. The employees that I work with are all so proud of what they do, and they are very helpful when I ask questions. Many of them tell me that since I am applying to med school, it is important for me to have these kinds of experiences, and I agree. I cannot help but feel like I am gaining incredible amounts of life experience, more so than if I was reading a book in a classroom. I know that the employees here take great pride in what they do, and it gives them great satisfaction in life. I know that I wish to feel the same way when I am helping out my community in the future. This position will really help me decide on what I want to do with my life and where I would like to spend my time helping others.

Getting Started

Initially I have hard a difficult time trying to schedule my time around to find a volunteer opportunity that fits my weekly schedule. I am still awaiting any response from Health Care for the Homeless about any volunteer opportunities during my free hours, and I have also contacted the San Jose Clinic and am awaiting a volunteer orientation that will take place this week. I have contacted the Legacy Community Health Clinic as well and am going to start volunteering at the Montrose clinic next week. I greatly enjoyed my time spend at the Legacy Clinic last semester and I look forward to more opportunities. At first, I wanted to choose a different clinic because I wanted to broaden my experiences, yet I spoke with the volunteer coordinator and I will be able to help out at a different Legacy Clinic. I still remember the things I learned from my time last semester at the Lyons Legacy Health clinic and I know that I have my empathy for those who I help now. I remember speaking to a man who had trouble trying to receive health care and talking to him about his situation. I have spent many hours in hospital and clinic settings during my life, but very few of them have been in underserved or in economically disadvantaged communities. I was shocked at the differences in the people's view of the clinic. At my cardiology unit at Kelsey-Seybold, the patients were well off for the most part, and it was not strange to hear a complaint or two about the long wait before being seen. Yet, at the Lyons clinic in the third ward, everyone there was thrilled that they were about to even be seen my a doctor and had no problem taking the whole day off to get the health care they needed. Granted, a whole day off work for these people was often a very hard thing to do, and would undoubtedly set them back a bit in paying their bills, yet in general, they were much more appreciative of the health care they received. This shed light on the different types of communities that I may serve in my future, and I know that my volunteer experiences will help me distinguish which communities I am meant to help.

Orientation, take 2!

My orientation at HHH was wonderful. I was happy just to see that there was a place as beneficial as Health care for the Homeless for the needy in the Houston area. I was surprised and happy that HHH offered many homeless people medical care, dental care, hot meals, and a place to do laundry and take a shower. Everyone that I met was very friendly, and many of the guests were very thankful for the volunteers and staff that provided them with these amenities. Sadly, there were not any openings for me to volunteer during my free hours. They accept volunteers during the mornings, and volunteers, being a very integral part of their clinic, need to be able to serve from 8-12am. The only time I was available was on Friday, and the coordinator said that she would let me know as soon as possible when a space opened up.

Meanwhile, I have contacted the San Jose Clinic and am awaiting an orientation with them! Hopefully I can find someone that can accommodate my schedule, and I am eager to begin helping and serving my community. I look forward for my orientation at the San Jose clinic, and look forward to helping out in any way that I can.

Awaiting Orientation

I am awaiting my orientation at Health Care for the Homeless, which is scheduled for this Friday. I am wondering what the experience will be like. I remember for my orientation for the Legacy Health Clinic, I watched a movie which increased my sensitivity for other cultures. The movie showed the lives of African boys who came to America and struggled with the new lifestyle and society. They had trouble getting jobs and functioning in the basic society and it shed light on my awareness. I learned that you never know the history of who you are talking to, and you don't know where they are coming from. I hope that my orientation at Health Care for the Homeless will leave me with as great of an experience as I had at the Legacy Clinic.

This week I volunteered at the clinic again and discussed future opportunities for helping out with the community outreach program again. It is important to educate the community of the availability of healthcare. The clinic offers HIV testing and treatment with various payment plans that are applicable to those who don't have any insurance. It still makes me feel very helpful and fortunate whenever I inform people of the clinics offerings and think that it was never a problem for me to receive this care. I helped one lady who was having a hard time receiving medicine that she needs. She was having a hard time getting help and was very frustrated and emotional, and I found out what she needed and got the staff to help her. It is very emotional when you see someone who needs help but is not allowed to receive it. She was having some problems with her paperwork and proof of residence and she had been waiting a long time to receive her medications. It was a rewarding experience to help her and see the look on her face when she was able to receive the help she needed. I hope that I can continue to have the rewarding experiences and understand the healthcare system from another point of view.

This week on March 22, I volunteered again at the clinic. I was put in touch with the community outreach department which needs help with spreading the word about the clinic and making the community aware of the fact that health care is available to them. This will be a very rewarding experience hopefully because I will be assisting other members of the department host classes about general health and prevention. Some classes will include giving information to women who are pregnant or prevention classes about sexually transmitted diseases.


I hope to see a new perspective of the community as we go out and spread the word of the new clinic. Many people are unaware of the health care opportunities and would love to have them. This again is an idea which is new to me because I have always had health care growing up and It is very humbling to be around those who weren't as fortunate as me. This new community outreach experience will hopefully be one which will become more aware of the reality of healthcare.

This week I helped out at the clinic by making patients feel more welcome in the lobby, answering general questions about what they needed to do to get care and I also promoted the grand opening of the clinic. The Legacy Clinic in the fifth ward on Lyons blvd just opened up and they are having a grand opening celebration. It was interesting to see how genuinely interested many people were for the clinic opening. The clinic will offer dental, eye care, maternity, pediatrics, and other general health care. I was surprised at how many people were excited for the clinic opening because they currently did not have any access to eye care or dental. It made me realize again how lucky I am to have these services in my life and now I will not take them for granted when I have to go to a dental appointment for a cleaning. One gentleman said he hadn't had his teeth looked at in many years and that he also needed glasses. I was glad I could help him by  letting him know of the grand opening celebration.


Overall the experience at the clinic was more fulfilling than I thought it would be and it really put things into perspective. I did not think that anyone would care about the grand opening party for the clinic because it seemed as if I was bugging the patients with fliers. But I soon realized that these people came from a different place than me and something as simple as a new clinic opening was a big difference to them.

Next time I am going to help out with the nurse in charge of immunizations and I hope that the experience will be as rewarding as the others.

Good experiences

So last week I met with Ashley on Friday and I helped plan the community grand opening which will occur on March 24th. It is a big grand opening for a clinic and will have lots of outdoor activities, barbecue, almost like a festival. It seems fun and I will be helping out at the grand opening. It should be a good experience to see the community coming together for the opening of a health care clinic which could help many peoples lives. I never realized that I always had healthcare access when I was younger and I cant imagine those who are actually troubled by access to treatment when they are sick or ill.


I also meet with Chris this week for some rotations in the clinic. Chris is the director of clinical administration. He gave me a good tour of the different places where I will be working and helping out in anyway I can. He said he would like to have me work in the different areas as I am needed. Some areas include the lab, pediatrics, helping out with computer processing at stations, and even just general greeting and helping patients feel more comfortable in the clinic, taking them back to the doctor, ect. I helped out for a few hours on Tuesday and it was fun. I talked to many patients and had a very interesting conversation with one woman and one man about their take on healthy diets. It is interesting that sometimes the difference between healthy eating and not is the knowledge. The woman was unaware of the implications of a very high sugar diet, and I had a good discussion with her about what my diet is and other examples of healthy diets. I even mentioned to her the fact that I will be making a brochure on some form of health advice. The conversation that I had with her made me realize that I would like to distribute information about healthy eating.


I am going back to help at the clinic this Thursday and look forward to helping out. People are very grateful for any kind of help I can offer and it feels good that I can put just a few hours of my day in to make a much bigger difference.

Let's Begin.

Hello all, and by all I mean the maybe 2 or 3 of you that read this blog, just to fill you guys in, I originally made this blog (yet have kept it empty since) about a month ago in order to follow and keep track of my sister, Heidi, and her husband, Roy. They like to post tidbits about their life and updates about how their new home is in Sienna Plantation. They are also training for triathlons, which is a big part of what they post.


I originally was going to post about my life as well and triathlon training, but have not had the "time" for in a while, until I found an excuse to post on here in the form of a volunteer blog. I will now devote most of my blogs to my volunteer experience in and around the Houston area through the Legacy Community Health Services clinic. I recently went to the clinic to check out the place and see the facilities. They are actually quite nice, and after talking to the very friendly volunteer coordinator, Ashley, I was all set up for my volunteer orientation.


The volunteer orientation was last Friday, February, 17. During this orientation, the main goal was "Sensitivity Training", where they helped the new volunteers see the world in a different way. Many people who come to the clinic have had a very different lifestyle due to their lack of substantial income, or due to a different education/culture. It is important that we realize these differences so that we may best accommodate those who are not familiar with what we do at the health clinic and so that we may accommodate ourselves to help these people in anyway we can. During our training, we watched a movie called "The Lost Boys of Sudan", which is a powerful and emotional movie about a famous group of African boys who were thrown into American culture with minimal help on how to cope with the new society. These boys were part of a small village in Sudan, and after their village was attacked and all of their parents killed, they ran and managed to get to the border of a neighboring country where they founded a refugee camp for them. Little by little, refugees were being sent to America who had opened their arms for the boys.


As touching as this was that the boys were able to go to America to have better lives and better health, their new life in America was not much easier. They struggled for jobs, schooling, and understanding for culture and way of life in America. Many of them did not speak any English, and it was difficult to make a living. In the end, some of the boys managed to graduate high school and hopefully went on to become active members of society with the power to increase awareness of the Lost Boys of Sudan. This movie did increase sensitivity and awareness for me, and it helped me see through the eyes of someone else things that I would never have thought about. They came from a different life, and I sometimes forget that I have had schooling and parents to teach me things since I was young, where some people may have never had that privilege.


With these newly acquired bits of wisdom, I hope to help the community and further increase my awareness of the conditions of the less fortunate. I have talked to Ashley about the volunteer opportunities and there are many from weekend events to clinical volunteering at one of the many clinics that Legacy has. I will keep you guys updated on my volunteering and look forward to my experience gained through helping out behind the curtains of our city.