For my STEP (Second Year Transformational Experience Program) project, I volunteered at the suicide hotline prevention service through North Central Mental Health Services in Columbus, Ohio. I participated in a six-month commitment beginning on August 1st, 2021 and concluding on January 1st, 2022. I volunteered for 10 hours a week during this period. The suicide hotline at North Mental Health Services fields over 16,000 calls a year and is primarily run by volunteers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days throughout the year. The goal of the hotline is to decrease the number of occurrences of suicide and suicidal ideation within the Columbus community. As a volunteer, we are trained to listen, assess caller risk, and provide resources and emergency care if necessary. This service-learning opportunity will provide me the chance to interact with individuals that suffer from mental illness. This opportunity helped me to remove some of my own personal stigma around mental health and allow me to work on my communication skills, rapport building, active listening skills, as well as crisis intervention and problem-solving. These skills can be beneficial when interacting with patients in any clinical environment.
From my experience at Suicide Prevention, I really gained insight into the importance of being empathetic. There were a lot of times where I would get a call where I had an exceedingly challenging time finding the “perfect” thing to say, however, often just being there and listening to people explain what they are going through is enough. Many times, these people either do not have anyone in their lives to talk to or the people they talk to only tell them what they should do. Sometimes these individuals really need someone just to listen to them. This is something that is particularly important when practicing as a physician because there will be times when you must give sad news to patients or patients’ families and sometimes there is nothing you can really say to make them feel better. Sometimes just letting them know that you are there for them and will do whatever you can to make their experience as good as it can be. At the hotline volunteers are trained to quickly build rapport with callers and listen to their issues, a majority of the time the callers are individuals suffering from mental health however other callers than simply have no one else to talk to will also call when going through a crisis in their lives. It is the volunteer’s responsibility, to the best of their ability, to listen to the caller, and his/her problems/issues assess their risk of suicide. Suicide is one of the foremost leading causes of death in the United States this hotline serves as a resource for those people that thinking about hurting themselves or others. My role as a volunteer will be to show up to my shifts and handle calls efficiently and effectively to reduce the number of suicides in the Columbus area. The most crucial factor is just being kind, understanding, being there for them.
I think one of the specific examples that I am referring to is when one of the members of the Columbus community called saying that he was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness. I cannot delve into too much detail due to patients’ privacy rules. However, I distinctly remember how I was practically at a lost for words. I wasn’t sure how I could make someone that just received such terrible news feel any better. It was one of those moments where I not only realized my own mortality but also how crazy others people’s lives can be compared to our own. During our 20-minute phone call I just asked him questions about his condition, his family, helped him make a plan for what he would do until his next doctor’s appointment. Even though I built a lot of confidence and skill in speaking with people, there were always cases where I was just at a lost for words. Working at the Suicide Prevention Hotline really humbled me and showed me that often times when I think that I am having a hard day or week that someone is likely going through something worse. It really puts everything in perspective and gives you a different outlook on life.
If there is one value that is emphasized in any clinical setting it is empathy. Empathy when interacting with patients is not only needed but a crucial aspect of the healthcare community. Physicians and nurses must be able to connect with patients and understand their pain to be able to provide for and deliver the best care for those patients. The role at suicide hotline services gave me the chance to speak with individuals of all sorts of different socioeconomic and academic backgrounds. I interacted with various people of different origins, giving me a chance to talk with people that grew up in a different country, a different environment, and different conditions, thus having a drastically different life experience than me. As a student aspiring to enter the medical field, this volunteer role helped me widen my view about the pain and suffering that occurs in my community. Physicians must understand the nuances to patients not simply from a medical standpoint but also from a sociological perspective, people are different and that may require physicians to change how they approach, speak, provide care, and comfort patients and family members. This position allowed me to obtain the volunteer hours required for medical school while also opening my view and helping others. The hotline truly challenged me by forcing me to empathize and connect with patients within a matter of minutes. SPS required me to think on my feet quickly but also respond compassionately to the patient’s concerns and problems. When having conversations face to face, we often exhibit emotions through our body language, however, due to the nature of the hotline being a phone-to-phone communication I will have to solely rely on my words and thus force myself to articulate in a manner that is beneficial and comforting to the members of the Columbus community. Volunteering at North Mental Health services will about me to improve skills such as listening, communication, and empathy. These are oftentimes the most important characteristics for physicians to have. You can be incredibly intelligent and quick on your feet, but without any ability to interact and connect with patients you will have an exceedingly difficult time in the medical field. The field of medicine is inherently altruistic. This project will help me grow by showing me how much suffering there is in my community and providing me an avenue to help those people.
