Volunteering

Why did I wear the Red Coat?

It was not until the second-to-last day of volunteering that I ran into an acquaintance from my college. He was an ER tech and, upon asking him, he politely informed me that the red coat need not be worn in the ED (Emergency Department). Nobody ever complained, and I never even got any weird looks (beyond the looks I usually get). But in the end, I could only smack my forehead as I realized that wearing that big, bulky coat made me look like a total tool. In the pristine, white halls of the then-under-construction ED, I probably looked like a crimson avenger moving meandering aimlessly to and fro.

My Purpose

"Valuable clinical experience", as it was proudly written on my AMCAS statement. Perhaps it was valuable ... for the nurses to look at me and laugh at me.
"Here comes big red again, guys!"
Yeah. Thanks. As I learned in my undergraduate days, the wards of the hospital, as well as the hospital itself, are not a place to joke around in. There is a hierarchy in place (perhaps more apparent in academically-affiliated teaching hospitals as opposed to community hospitals like the one I was in). Everyone has a specific job to do that they were very thoroughly trained for and ideally, every aspect of the hospital (and thus, health-care) should run like a machine.

I was useless. It would have sufficed to have been an actual ghost, floating around and watching the events of the ED. At least then I would a) be able to actually see doctor-patient interactions and b) not be a big, red eyesore taking valuable bed-changing time away from the techs. I am not sure if it was my particular ED, the guy that "trained" me, or my lack of initiative, but my job description was pretty bleak. The ED is the place, if nowhere else in the hospital, where teamwork and efficiency is vital to saving lives. Skills and roles were important, and I had neither of them.

I mostly hung around the nurse's station, chatting with them on slow days. I begged to take urine samples (still warm and toasty) to the lab, and I fought the techs to change patient's beds after discharge (making a one-minute job take even less). I sat outside the ED and directed people to various wings of the hospital, and once I even wheeled a teenage mother in labor up to the maternity ward. But in the end, I was a big, red eyesore.

Better Dead than Red

I was the only volunteer under the age of 65 in the entire hospital. "You're a young red coat!" they would always say with a gleeful smile as I scampered by on my way to the mail-room to fetch mail for the ED. Like a 3rd year medical student on their rotation, my coat was packed with MCAT flashcards, keys, a cellphone, and my wallet. The big difference? My coat was red, not white, and I did not have even 2 years of medical school curriculum under my belt. Why did I wear the coat? Oh, that's right. Dan, my trainer, had worn the coat as well.

There were a few other "kids" in the ED. "Patient liaison", it said on their name-tag. They were getting paid. They did more than me! They had a purpose, and they dressed up in normal dress clothes plus their name-tag. Yet, they did not tell me I looked like a gigantic, sore thumb against the cool, white background of the ED. I'm sure red is the last color to comfort a nervous patient; scrubs are green and blue for a psychological reason.

Finished

I had one day left. It was early-August. I should have just stuck my name tag onto a dress-shirt, but I put that glaring red coat back on for the last time. It was also my second day in the newly-renovated ED; I stuck out even more. Patients probably wondered what a completely unskilled kid with no purpose was doing wandering the halls. At least I was going over MCAT equations in my head (the life of the pre-med...).

6 Months have passed since that balmy August, and 6 more months will pass before I set my foot into medical school for my first day of class. I'm sure the ED staff still looks around from time to time and wonders where that red blob went.