Hey everyone!
I think I had about three days from my last final to the first day of my volunteer opportunity. I woke up that Monday at 7:50 am to put on my scrubs for my first day at the UHI clinic. This clinic is in Miami Gardens, my home city. UHI clinic serves uninsured people from South Florida and provides multiple services at little to no cost. When I walked in on my first day, I was warmly greeted by medical assistants and was immediately taught how to check in patients and take their vitals. I learned how to navigate their online system and how to complete a variety of office tasks. When the first patient walked into the clinic, I was asked if I felt comfortable checking them in and taking their vitals, to which my answer was yes. The clinic was very busy that day, I learned and did so much. The medical assistants and volunteer staff are all students or young people hoping to one day go into medicine. We all share that goal and the older pre-meds have many tips and advice for the application process, so I have been able to learn about things that will be very useful to me when I decide to apply.
My transition to the position was a bit abrupt, but I enjoyed it and have since had a nice time during my shifts. In addition to volunteering at the UHI Clinic, I am shadowing a dermatologist once a week. On the first day of shadowing, I was able to see almost 25 patients who had come in for some sort of surgical procedure, most of them were cancerous mole removals. I have seen what it is like to be a dermatologist, which is a career that interests me in the future. These two opportunities are what I am focusing on for the summer, together they are around 16 hours a week. I do have some school related responsibilities like online classes and club responsibilities but it has not been to difficult to juggle.
HSF House Blogs 