NEWS

Denison students, hospice partner

Evelyn Frolking

NEWARK — Wendy Geslewitz spends her college days in classrooms and labs. She is a biology major at Denison University. On some days of the week though, she steps off the college hill and into a world very different from her own. Wendy is a hospice volunteer.

On any one day, she may read the newspaper to a patient, assist with eating, or just chat — whatever is needed, whatever the day brings to someone on the edge of life. The simple gifts companions like Wendy give to others can renew life’s connection or make the day a little more passable for them and their families — a little easier, a little softer, a little closer.

“I learn a lot about the people I work with,” she says. “I’ve worked with several patients over the past two years. I try to build relationships. These people depend on me.”

Geslewitz is part of the Medical Volunteer Committee of the Denison Community Association. In fact, she chairs the committee and cared enough about her volunteer work with hospice to spend her summer here this year.

The relationships that bring young adults together with hospice patients is possible through a collaboration between Denison and Hospice of Central Ohio, a not-for-profit organization that serves nine area counties.

This collaboration is much more than just another student service project.

“I work on recruiting volunteers and because of the medical connection, there is lots of interest,” she says. “This year, we had 15 active students. As the committee chair, I am at the college’s Involvement Fair to talk about the program for students exploring the options, and I work throughout the year to contact students interested in health related fields.”

Medical Volunteers are students like Geslewitz. They find outlets for a spirit inside them that they can’t always describe or even really understand where it is coming from, but one that urges them to help others.

Geslewitz says she has a keen interest in particular in the Selma Markowitz Inpatient Care Center, located on the sixth floor of Licking Memorial Hospital in Newark.

“I enjoy the connection of working with a person who depends on you,” Geslewitz said. “This is a not drop in work, you must commit.”

100-plus DU students volunteer

“Since 2009, we’ve trained over 100 Denison students,” says Liz Adamshick, volunteer services manager for Hospice. “Of those, approximately one-half remain active for at least one semester and from six to 10 continue from one year to the next.”

Given the demands of academic lives of college students, Adamshick couldn’t be more delighted to add them to the ranks of volunteers who provide direct patient care to the terminally ill and their families. In all, the volunteer force numbers about 150, she says.

“Denison student volunteers support our goals to be an inclusive, nonjudgmental hospice care provider, and do so beautifully with their diverse backgrounds, skills, and experience,” Adamshick says.

She explains that direct patient care often involves volunteers serving as companions in nursing homes and private homes. They follow their assigned patients’ Plan of Care, customized to the patient’s current and evolving end-of-life needs. In addition to various appropriate social activities, such as reading to a patient, they can provide feeding support or sit with those who might be anxious or unable to communicate verbally.

Responsibilities can vary, however, and don’t always include patient contact. Volunteers may select to help with administrative support, restock medical supplies, greet visitors in the Granville office or assist with unit clerk duties.

Regardless of placement, all medical volunteers are required to complete 10 hours of training over a two-week period. “It’s the same training, the same level of work,” Adamshick says.

“After training, we help them refine their interest and then we try to get out of their way,” she explains. “As with any volunteer staff member, we include clinical staff in the supervisory role, so they know that these young adults seek and need practical experience and we are all here to coach them through it.”

On to medical school

One of those volunteers is indeed pursuing his dream of becoming a physician. Thomas Graf, a 2013 Denison graduate, is a third-year medical student at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. He volunteered with Hospice of Central Ohio during the second half of his junior year and his entire senior year.

“I was a patient companion and that involved spending time with hospice patients in several different ways,” he says. “The time I spent with the first person mostly consisted of doing puzzles, playing bingo, and chatting. He was a fairly active and able man, which turned out to be quite different from several other people I saw later on.”

Graf’s experience gave him insight into the needs, feelings, and mindsets of people at the end of their lives.

“As a medical student, my experience with hospice made me more comfortable talking to patients about difficult situations and circumstances regarding their health. It has also helped me to understand in part the nature of death and dying,” he says.

Denison isn’t the only college Hospice works with. The list includes The Ohio State University main and branch campuses, the Central Ohio Technical College and Mt. Vernon Nazarene College.

“We believe we have become an incubator for the hopes and dreams of a career,” Adamshick says.

The connections, the commitment, the challenge and the caring from students like Geslewitz who seem so far from the end of their own lives earned the college a Good Neighbor Award from Hospice of Central Ohio this past spring. Geslewitz, alongside fellow student Ankita Henry, and Associate Director for the Alford Center Susie Kalinoski, accepted the award on behalf of the college at an annual awards banquet in April.

“The Good Neighbor Award recognizes a corporation or community group that serves as an inspirational example of dedication to hospice volunteerism and collaboration,” according to Adamshick.”