Final Days at the Catholic Charities

Time flew by for Tessa and I at the Catholic Charities. My days went by so quickly it was a total shock to me that Tessa and I were finishing so soon. Everything went really well for Tessa and I. We were able to develop relationships with all the volunteers at the healthcare center as well as relationships with the patients. We both were shown that we were trusted and members of the team by given independence and allowing us to be in charge of referring patients for further procedures and continuation of their care. As mentioned by Tessa in her post, we were able to implement educational posters and gauge our results with a pre and post-test to see if the posters actually increased knowledge of diabetes. We did all of the calculations and discovered that our teaching and implementation showed an improvement of 39% in the scores of the patients from pre to post test. Diabetes is a major problem of the patients who are seen at the Catholic Charities and it's great to know that we're helping them take a step in the right direction of managing their disease and becoming more aware of the risks and complications of it.
Overall this was a great experience for me. I got to follow cardiologist, ophthalmologists, endocrinologists, urologists, orthopedic, podiatrists and general physicians and gained so much knowledge and information from every one of them. I also got to see the pharmacy and how they worked and learn a great deal about what medications are used for what and the adjustment of these medications. This is a great place for someone to volunteer their time and is somewhere that I plan to volunteer my time at once I graduate.