Isabel Sternthal

LIA at Maggie’s Barts

Week 4

I am now in the latter half of my time at Maggie’s Barts. Having been here for a month, I am now in a position to see major improvements, and deteriorations in the quality of life of regular center visitors. This has been both profoundly meaningful and deeply challenging. In previous work experience, I have seen patients at various life stages and phases of their care, but I have not been in a role in which I have developed longer-term relationships with service users. To know people as individuals and to see their progress is a profoundly different experience than to see stand-alone moments in a service user’s care. Even though I intellectually knew this to be true prior to my placement, to experience it is a different reality altogether. 

As I have grown more comfortable engaging with center visitors, I am finding that the nature of my conversations is shifting. I am still highly cognizant of what are and are not appropriate ways of interacting as a student, but feel more confident in following a visitor’s lead if they bring up realities of their treatment and cancer experiences. Because the center’s common space has an open layout, I have been able to observe the staff as they participate in these types of conversations, and I am working to emulate their language and style of engagement. I am grateful that the team has trusted me to self-assess the appropriate boundaries of my role here, and to interact with visitors in this manner. 

Next week, I will continue to update the center’s brochure library, an undertaking I began last week, and to assist with other administrative tasks during down time. My primary goal will be to continue building visitor relationships and to focus on observing and learning from the center staff.