COPE Health Scholar: Mission

05 April 2017

This past month, during my internship, many interesting things have happened. One of the biggest life changing moment I had was when I had to give CPR to a patient. and saved his life. This patient came into the ER via ambulance and I was helping the nurse who was in charge of this patient. I hooked him up onto the monitor and took down his vital signs. After about an hour later, I went in to check up on him and see how he and his family was doing. I noticed that the leads to monitor his heart rate were taken off, so I went to ask the nurse to see if the patient needed the leads back on. The nurse simply advised to me just put the leads back on so I went back and while I was putting the leads back, the patient was trying to get out of bed so I told the family members to just make sure he stays in bed because he is not stable enough to get out.

I went about my business and a while later, after I had finished taking vitals for another patient, I saw a crowd of nurses near the patient. I walked over and noticed that the EMTs were doing CPR on the patient and being the first time I have seen CPR on a real person, I did not know what to do. The EMT called me over and told me that I will be going next to perform CPR and I was extremely nervous and my heart was pounding because I have only done CPR on a mannequin two or three times before. As I stepped up and did the first compression, I realized that this was completely different and harder than I imagined. After the first compression, I had said “I can’t do this!” but the nurses around me were very encouraging and kept saying that I was doing good. I had done maybe around 25-30 compressions until the next person but the doctor took his pulse and said “I got a pulse…”.

Afterwards, I was still in shock as I walked away so that the nurses and doctor could do what they needed. It wasn’t until I was leaving my shift and I was talking to the EMT and realized that since I was the last one to give CPR, I technically saved his life. Upon hearing that from the EMT, I was ecstatic. What I learned from this event was that there is not much time to think about what is going on during an emergency. You just have to go for it and give it your all. I relate this to my goal of becoming an Occupational Therapist because it shows that everyone comes in with different conditions and I should always assess everything before proceeding with treatment plans and sessions.

My internship program has a mission statement, “To help our clients achieve visionary, market relevant health care solutions”. COPE health solutions strives to provide the best care possible to all individuals who need care. No matter what financial status the person is in, COPE wants everyone to be able to live a healthier and better life.

 

-Pauline Wong