Beyond the Call

[Paulina Michi Young]

I don’t particularly like answering telephones. Clearly, I would not make the most eager receptionist. Yet, taking phone calls is what I do, seventy percent of the time, four hours a week. As part of Ronald Reagan Hospital’s newest batch of interns, my job description consists of restocking supplies, fulfilling patients’ basic requests, transporting samples and equipment to and from various locations within the hospital, and, in general, being attentive and ready to “assist” hospital personnel, the patients, and the patients’ families. Most of the time, “assisting” means sitting at the greeter’s station, ready to answer any of the complex phone systems that lie within an arm’s reach. To be completely frank, it’s not nearly the most interesting job one could possibly have, that is, if all four hours of the shift are spent staring at the telephones. I’m here at Ronald Reagan Hospital for a multi-step reason: to observe, and from there, to learn. Routinely making the rounds with my cart, refilling isolation gowns and latex gloves, I see nurses administering intravenous fluid to post-surgery patients and doctors analyzing charts and determining medicinal dosages. If I’m lucky, I’ll receive the chance to have a conversation with a patient or follow the doctors on their daily rounds. Toting a blood sample to the basement laboratory allows me to view a bustling hospital staff processing multiple samples from all floors of the hospital amidst whirring, futuristic machines. As for answering the telephone, I get to exchange words with nurses and patients alike, and hopefully carry out their needs or answer their inquiries. By being proactive, I choose to make my own unique experience out of the given parameters of what my job entails. By keeping my eyes open wide to medical surroundings, my ears receptive to new vocabulary and instructions, and my mouth continuously asking questions for clarity and confirmation of acquired knowledge, I hope to take everything that I have gained here at the hospital and carry it with me to my future career as a physician. I do what I do now because I care about achieving what I want, what I strive to do in the future. I do what I do for insight and for preparation. I do what I do because I want to attain the childhood dream that is now a potential reality.