MY GROWTH
How I Have Grown Personally, Academically, and Professionally
Volunteering daily at the hospital was definitely a well-rounded experience for me. I feel that while I learned so much that I did not realize until later about the medical field, I also gained even more valuable knowledge about life, business, and interacting with people. In general terms, I have gained new perspectives on those who travel through the healthcare field, whether as a patients, employees, professionals - simply at every level of the inner workings of a hospital. I will admit that I was not very thrilled with my experience in the beginning. I felt that my desire to learn and help was disregarded in a way and I dreaded every day. But as time went on, I grew to understand my role at the hospital, as well as the roles of everyone I worked with daily. I found that while I did gain the experience I was looking for I also gained an even better experience and more growth than I was expecting. I was simply growing as an adult in the workforce. I began to understand where people were coming from and look at the way the world worked in a different way. Being that the hospital is located in a rough part of town, I saw all walks of life. Yet, not a single person was treated differently rather they were given the assistance and care they needed.
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As a specific example, I worked in Cardiology in the mornings where most of the women there had college educations and furthered their education in order to become a technician. Yet in the afternoons I worked in the transportation department where many of the women did not have college educations and were working here part-time. While I am not emphasizing this as something wrong, I just found it interesting that the women in both of these departments had completely different backgrounds, opportunities, and lives and all worked just as hard and together to keep the hospital running. They all had something different to offer in terms of where they came from, building who they are and their work ethics. While my main goal was to learn more about the medical field, I feel this opportunity taught me a new perspective on life and the reality of the workforce beyond my college years.
If I had to sum it all up, I learned so much about things like diversity, compassion, integrity, and cooperative learning. Not only in a hospital but also in society as a whole. In order for you to walk through this experience with me and see my growth, I have attached my weekly journals from when I was working there. I feel that reading through these will not only allow you to understand my days at the hospital better, but really see the changes that my mindset and perspective underwent just by being there.
