A Volunteer's Place

My experience at Crossroad so far has been an eye-opening look behind the scenes of a doctor’s office. The clinic functions through the hard work of a diverse group of employees, a combination of physicians, nurses, medical assistants, administrative workers, and many others. Trying to understand a volunteer’s place in this complex hierarchy of people is perhaps the hardest part of the job. There is a delicate balance between offering assistance and pestering; trying to learn and getting in the way. It seems like the clinic has its own delicate ecosystem, with a wide variety of niches to fill. The trick is finding an empty one and tailoring it to your own personal strengths and interests. 

In the six months that I have spent at Crossroad as a volunteer I have learned a lot about myself and the type of niche I eventually want to fill. This experience has only strengthened my resolve to become a primary care physician, as well as confirming that I’m probably not the right person to work in pediatrics, but have no problem with adult patients . In addition to learning more about myself, I have learned so much about people very different than myself. I have had the good fortune to have never dealt with poverty, or homelessness, or so many of the other things that many of Crossroad’s patients struggle with daily. I have heard so many difficult questions asked by the patients. One memorable one is calling a patient to ask if they had gone to see a doctor that they were referred to, and there answer was “How will I pay for it?” This is such a simple question, but it gets to the root of the majority of issues facing our patients. Should I buy food or refill my medicine? Should I miss work to go to the doctor, or can it wait? By experiencing these sorts of situations, and also seeing how the clinical addresses them, I feel I will be better equipped to handle similar issues in the future with patients of my own. 

 In short, I can’t say exactly what the job description of a volunteer at Crossroad really is, other than simply to help in whatever way is needed, so that Crossroad can continue to be there to answer patient’s difficult questions.

- By Emily Blatz