Steven Freund

Destin/Fort Walton Beach, Florida Area United States

Acquisitions Program Manager & Chemist at United States Air Force

Government / Military

I was in the Emergency Room of the hospital, one of the first few weeks as a volunteer. There wasn't a job description of a volunteer, minus changing a sheet or wiping a bed down here and there. The phrase "comforting patients" arose a few times, but I didn't know what that meant. Did it mean talk to them? Console them? I didn't know; eventually, it was interpreted as approach patients in the different rooms of the ER and just see how they're doing. However, this created anxiety; would they want to speak to me? Could I actually offer them anything of value? It was a small insecurity that shattered one day when a spontaneous email from one of those patients appeared in my inbox. The ...