Anna Amici takes the blood pressure of the patients at the People’s Health Clinic last Wednesday.

Volunteering for Health

By Jason Strykowski
Of the Record Staff

Instead of hanging out and playing video games in her afternoons following school, Anna Amici draws blood. She also registers patients, records blood pressure and greets patients, most frequently in Spanish.

The Park City High School senior has volunteered at the People’s Health Clinic for the past two-and-a-half years and is now an integral part of the clinic’s operation. She began as a sophomore with the simple hope of using the experience as a springboard on the way to a volunteer vacation in Peru.
The experience, however, stayed with her. “I liked it so much I kept doing it,” she said. Her ability to work daily with people afforded her a unique experience in healthcare. She could interact with people directly.

Cecily Huff Smith, Clinic Coordinator, said that one of the greatest benefits attained by their five high school volunteers is real-world experience. Amici and the others could interact regularly with 30 to 40 people per evening clinic.
The vast majority of the patients that use the clinic speak Spanish as their primary language. Amici and the volunteers have had little choice but to become conversant in that language. Many of the volunteers, in fact, use the job as something of an immersion program. “The hardest part (of the job) was a lot of the medical terms in Spanish,” said Amici citing “papanicolao,” Spanish for pap smear, as one of her favorites.

She also said that her knowledge of Spanish is most useful during the pregnancy clinic as most of the patients who attend speak Spanish. Her work with pregnant women has also profoundly impacted her and she has decided to pursue a career as an obstetrician.

Not all clinic evenings are entirely devoted to pregnant women, however. During the Wednesday clinic Amici helps people who simply have no insurance. Patients may arrive for general medicine, hypertension, diabetes or pediatrics. Regardless, of their needs, they all see Amici first. The “patients really appreciate them,” said Huff Smith of the student volunteer receptionists.  Her presence, and that of the other young volunteers, gives “patients an opportunity to interact with clinicians,” said Andrew Sipherd, Director of the People’s Health Clinic.

When the patients arrive, Amici pulls their files, takes their vitals and ushers them into the waiting room. Her fluid ability in all these healthcare basics, most of which she learned on the job, is one of the great benefits of her work. The jobs, said Sipherd, “give(s) them an opportunity to develop skills.”

The experience and the techniques they learned have, in turn, attached many of the volunteers to their job. Some of them even asked their parents to give donations to the clinic in lieu of Christmas gifts. This sacrifice comes on top of the time that they already commit to the clinic as volunteers.

For Amici, not only has work driven her to a career path in medicine, she also said that it inspired her “to keep volunteering for the rest of my life.” The clinic is always looking for volunteers and students or others interested may contact Cecily Huff Smith at (435) 640-5747.