Hello! This summer I had an amazing opportunity to work on a project with the SVYM Palliative Care Center writing a book about people’s experiences in the Palliative Care Center at SVYM. The book is titled “Healing Hands and Caring Hearts” and it features the experiences of 13 different medical professionals and patients at the center. Going into the experience, as an ILR major, I had a lot of doubts about my knowIedge and I had to educate myself about the current state of palliative care in India. The first thing I did was to find the definition of palliative care as a holistic approach to improving the quality of life of patients and their families suffering from serious health-related illnesses where holistic care overrules curative care. I found that there was a huge need for palliative care across the country with an estimated 6 million people being in need of palliative care every year. My research also educated me on a model similar to SVYM’s Palliaitve Care center called community based palliative care which focuses on empowering and involving community caregivers and volunteers in the palliative care process under the supervision of trained palliative care nurses. With this understanding, I could identify with the purpose of the book to use storytelling to increase public awareness of palliative care and to empower community members to get involved with community based palliative care. Through sharing the stories and benefits people have experienced through palliative care, the idea of palliative care could be more accessible to people and less of an abstract concept.
I have learned so much about myself and others through this experience! One of my favorite parts of the summer was spending time at the palliative care center and interacting with patients, their families, medical workers at the center, and my mentor. Palliative care is a form of healthcare that at its root is compassion and empathy for others. Every person I spoke to was so passionate about finding ways to show care and empathy for the patients at the center. My mentor had a saying that “There is an instinct of empathy, compassion and care that is innate in every person.” This summer has shown me how much that saying is true. I am extremely grateful to SVYM, the GSL team, my mentor, and my cohort for making this experience unforgettable.
