Reginald Doctor has been a registered nurse in the emergency room department for about 25 years now and still working up to today. He was also my summer mentor.
1) I'm interested in studying patient care. What can you tell me about it?
Patient care involves someone taking care of another that is ill, it involves you helping them get better physically and also mentally and emotionally. Just give them your support in any way you can.
2) From your perspective, what could I study that would be significant to other people?
Well if you want a direct patient care, you can study medicine and become a doctor. That is one of the fields you can study in. You can also get into nursing which also involves direct patient care. But there are other fields also where you can deal with patients depending on their needs such as physical therapy, speech therapy, or pharmacists. Pharmacology, you can study that.
3) Who else would you recommend I talk to?
Well, you can talk to one of the doctors I work with. Such as Dr. Kusmara or Dr. Schuck over in the emergency room in the department. Or any of my peers (or registered nurses) I work with in my department.
4) What kinds of places or activities do you recommend I do for the mentorship component?
You can definitely do volunteer work in a hospital. You can work in different departments there such as the emergency room or the surgical floor. You can also take certain classes such as CPR, first aid classes, you know, classes that would give you a background on the medical field and some have certifications.
5) What materials should I read in this field? Who else can I interview?
THere is actually a lot of materials you can read that pertain to medicine. There are a few medical journals you can read and also lots of nursing journals that are monthly or sometimes even weekly publications you can actually subscribe and read.
6) What is the most important component to effective patient-care learning from your experience?
Well, communication is very important not only the medical field, but any field you get into. But certainly it's a vital component in patient care. Obviously, having the knowledge with what you need to do are very very important and skills to learn as well.
7) What are some important things/lessons you've learned from working in this field?
Just in general, working in patient care, I've learned that it's not a very easy thing. It's definitely something you can't learn overnight. It's something that you develop within you when it comes to caring for people. Although, one lesson and one very rewarding thing I learned is that very its a very very rewarding feeling to help people get better from their sicknesses.
8) When working with a difficult patient, what are some methods do you apply to help deliver effective patient care?
Again, the key thing would be good communication and understanding where the other person is coming from. Trying to understand why in certain situations they are being difficult. Trying to understand those reasons and being able to communicate with them would be a key factor and a basic place to start with.
9) What do you like most about working to care for patients?
The best thing for me, again I would say, it's just the reward that it gives you. It gives me personally, not in a material sense, just a gratification, satisfaction, the reward inside of seeing someone get better and get well.
10) Any advice you would've given yourself when you first got started in this field?
I would say from the very beginning, and I would give myself this advice over and over again, is to learn and to have a lot of patience. And have a lot of understanding for people, and people are not the same. People come from different backgrounds and understand that and caring for them.
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