No matter what age a person is, volunteering at SSM Health provides not only a great service to the hospital, but can provide rewarding opportunities to those donating their time. For former volunteers Ashlyn Campbell and Danny Tran, the educational aspect was almost as important to them as the impact of giving back to their communities.
Campbell served as a junior volunteer during high school and Tran began volunteering at the age of 26. Both served at SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital in Oklahoma City and both turned that early experience into a career as a health care provider.
When Campbell was 14, her mother became ill and it was then that she realized she someday wanted to become a nurse, so she could help others going through what her mother experienced. A year later, she became an SSM Health Junior Volunteer and continued to volunteer until her senior year of high school when she began her education towards becoming a nurse.
“The volunteer program gave me experience of knowing what the hospital setting was like and what area I wanted to work in as a nurse,” Campbell said.
Today, she is an LPN in Med-Surg at the same hospital she volunteered at and is working on her RN degree.
“My plans are to continue my nursing career and maybe someday expand my horizons by moving into a more critical side of nursing,” she said.
Although older when he began his volunteer work, Tran had a similar goal. “I wanted the experience (of working in a hospital setting) and knew it would be a great way to give back to the community,” he said. That desire to give to his community also drove his decision to become a physician assistant.
“At SSM Health, I was really inspired by the fact that they don’t turn anyone away and treat everyone with the same respect and care,” he said.
When he began volunteering, Tran already knew he was interested in pursuing medicine as a career, and being around every level of medicine during his volunteer time amplified that desire. During that time, he helped out in the clinic of Dr. Tauseef Ali, SSM Health gastroenterologist, who later became his preceptor during his PA school clinic rotations. Tran now works as a PA in Dr. Ali’s clinic. . “I’ve been there almost two years,” Tran said. “I love the patients and the environment.”
Tran’s main goal now is to “continue growing and becoming a better provider. Medicine is forever fluid and advancing and you must adapt and go with the flow.”
Volunteering at SSM Health St. Anthony Hospital was a transformational time for both Campbell and Tran, not only helping them focus on their future career direction, but also on the kind of person they wanted to be.
For Tran, the volunteer program at SSM Health “was a fantastic place to join and meet all walks of life and just be around other people that have the same goals and mission.”
For more information on volunteer opportunities at SSM Health, go to https://www.ssmhealth.com/volunteer. Explore current career openings at jobs.ssmhealth.com.
