My service, Patient Care Center has given me way more than what I have expected. I met new people, had the chance to learn about them, their everyday lives, habits and also to undertake challenges by working with patients who might not speak the same language as I do.

I have learned a lot about how to treat, talk to and act with certain people, simply because of their different backgrounds, religion or culture. We had to be really careful with what we say, how we say it and how we act around patients, as some of them were really sensitive, mostly because of their treatment.

There has been a patient for example, who I personally was a little bit scared of since the beginning, as his mood has changed a lot in just minutes and he could also be quite aggressive in the way he talked to the nurses and us. I am a really open and talkative person but I had to understand, that he isn’t that kind of person, who we can just go up to and talk. He, for example, did understand English but refused to talk to us, because he saw us as people disrupting his everyday life and routines.

I set up a goal for myself in the middle of the year, because I really wanted to get to know him and be able to talk to him. I started with small steps, I tried to approach him with food or offered him something to drink slowly and carefully. Sometimes I just sat next to him, in quiet, sometimes asked some questions and if he didn’t answer, I answered them myself. He wasn’t ready to open up just yet and I had to respect that. However, towards the end of the year, he finally started talking and he even gave me a high five on my last day at the hospital.