Senior Project Hours

Hours throughout the week: 12 hours
Total hours: 13 hours
The week of March 31- April 6

During this week, my mentor and I did 3 hours in her work, UCSF, and we also did 1 hour meetings at her house. We did this routine 3 times this week. Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. This week was my first time going to UCSF. My mentor and her staff showed me around, and I got the opporunity to finally shadow her. I learned the basics of what a Respiratory Therapists does. To be completely honest, I was so scared. My whole life, I have been lead to believe that all doctors are mean. To my surprise, they're not! Mira and her entire staff were so kind. I think it's because they work with all kinds of ages, Mira, specifically works with children. I wasn't able to stay in the rooms for long when Mira was with patients, due to the facts that there's the whole "doctor-patient policy" thing, but for the time I was able to check a few things out. I noticed her checking the patients breathing, listening to their heart beat and their lungs.


Hours throughout the week: 8 hours
Total hours: 21 hours
April 13

This week, I only shadowed my mentor once. We did a full 7 hours at UCSF, and 1 hour meeting at her house. At the begining of the day, my mentor did the basics. Check the patients, write summaries about each patient. My mentor let me check a patients heart beat (with the patients permission, of course). My mentor began explaining how to properly use an inhalor. She also shared a video with me that her whole staff had been passing around. It was actually interesting. The video had to do with a patient not knowing how to properly use her inhalor. It was suppose to be a humorous video, but I didn't see much humor in it. After watching the video, my mentor explained me that the reason to why the video was humorour was because a lot of Americans really don't know how to properly use an inhalor. She then taught me how to properly use one. To my advantage, after enjoying a short lunch break, my mentor had a patient, who was hispanic. She is 12 years old. I had noticed from my previous visits that this patient had been coming to the hospital a lot. The patients parents only spoke Spanish, and since I am a Spanish speaker myself, I was able to translate. They explained to me that they're daughter had been waking up in the middle of the nights, coughing dramatically. They also explain that she is not as active as she once was, and she was begining to tire very quickly. After explaing this to my mentor, she automatically began testing the patient. Doing breathing tests, looking into family medical hisotories, and asking a few questions, like how frequent these symptoms were, when they occured, ect. We told the patient and her family, that we shall give her a call and set up a next appointment when results were in.


Hours throughout the week: 4 hours
Total hours: 25 hours
April 21

This week, I shadowed my mentor once again. I was only able to work with her for 4 hours today, since I worked today. We met up at 7am and began our day. The same patient from my previous visit, was coming in today. Which for some reason, got me a little excited. I felt really helpful being able to translate and actually being apart of something. I have been shadowing my mentor for so long, it felt pretty good being able to be in there helping out. A few check-ups went by, and then finally the patient I knew came in. Her parents, pleased to see me, greeted me and my mentor, and we all began talking. My mentor had came to the conclusion that the patient might have Asthma. She did many tests on the patients, and many came back as positive. So, my mentor provided an inhalor for the patient. Neither the patient or parents had ever used an inhalor. My mentor then told me to provide the proper use of an inhalor, since she had showed me how to use one correctly before. I explained how to hold the inhalor, how long to hold your breathing, and when it is necessary to use the inhalor. After showing the patient and her parents, they all thanked me and my mentor. It felt great being able to be apart of their happiness. I really enjoyed the fact that I helped them all out. My mentor told me she was very much proud of how well I explained everything, and how patient I was when the patient didn't understand and I had to explain more. It was probably the highlight of working with my mentor for me, the fact that I made a difference in someone elses life.


Hours throughout the week: 2 hours
Total hours: 27 hours
April 30

Today, my mentor and I met at her house and had a huge discussion of all the hours we did together. Working with my mentor, really opened my eyes to a whole new world. People really don't pay attention to the little things, like simply using an inhalor correctly. Being a Respiratory Therapist, is a very difficult, tiring, and hard working job. But then again, it can be such a great, fun, and interesting job. My mentor told me she was very proud of all the time and effort I put into this. Meeting with her, was very difficult due to the fact that she works only 3 days a week, and it's never assigned days. And since I work too, it was very difficult to make time. But, we both managed to pull through, and overall, we can both say it was a great experience.