By Laura Daues

It was while helping calm patient’s nerves as a volunteer at Mount Sinai Hospital that Gumay Agayeva was inspired to pursue a career in nursing.

Second year medical student Steven Orlov  makes time to volunteer at Mount Sinai

Today, she is not only a nursing school graduate from the University of Toronto but also a full-time nurse at Mount Sinai Hospital. Agayeva says her volunteer experience at Mount Sinai helped her understand what it would take to be a nurse – and she wanted to be part of the team that delivered quality patient care.

She gained first-hand experience seeing the Mount Sinai nurses work while she accompanied patients, speaking to them to calm their anxiety before surgery.

“The nurses at Mount Sinai are dedicated and knowledgeable, they are doing truly amazing things and I knew I wanted to learn to be one,” says Agayeva.

In many cases, volunteers are the first contact patients have with the hospital. Whether it is sitting with a patient while they are waiting for a procedure or helping a patient at mealtime, volunteering offers a valuable experience for those wanting to enter health care.

And, with 702 volunteers this summer — contributing to the 109,000 hours of service that volunteers give the hospital each year — Mount Sinai’s Volunteer Services works hard to put each volunteer into a professional role or a department best suited to their needs, interests, skills and talents.

“What could be more thrilling than to find the right spot in the hospital for a volunteer?” said Joanne Fine-Schwebel, Director of Volunteer Services.

“I consider it a privilege to encourage and to work with these future nurses and doctors. We are their first exposure to health care and that makes our role here at Volunteer Services so important.”

Currently, 18 summer volunteers were moving on to medical school this fall, this experience will be a great benefit to them,” she says.

“Our volunteers gain unique exposure to world-class health care practitioners and, the hospital, in turn, has a chance to nurture and encourage potential future doctors and nurses by showing them an inside view of what a life in health care looks like,” says Fine-Schwebel.

Just ask Steven Orlov.

Orlov has been a volunteer since 2002 and works in Dr. Paul Walfish’s office in the Division of Endocrinology.

Currently in his second year of medicine at the University of Toronto, Orlov says that volunteering his time at Mount Sinai helping Dr. Walfish with his research on thyroid cancer not only keeps him motivated, but reinforces his decision to pursue a career in health-care.

“I can remember one night staying late at the hospital with Dr. Walfish, and looking out the window and seeing the lights from the other hospitals across the street,” says Orlov. “It was a pleasant reminder of why I was there at 11 p.m. — it was because this is where I want to be for the rest of my life. Even though I was tired I was right where I wanted to be.”