An expenses-paid trip to northeast Florida sounds fun.
Sonoma County's Sue Wood and J. Patch Guglielmino surely will enjoy their journey later this month to historic, seaside St. Augustine and nearby Jacksonville.
But it's not a vacation. Wood, 82, and Guglielmino, 74, are seasoned Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital volunteers invited to Florida to share what they know about making hospital emergency rooms — often frantic, frightening, infuriating places — more human.
These women, with a combined 18,500 volunteer hours at Memorial, wade regularly into the ward of anguish that is a regional trauma center. A victim of a street-gang stabbing might moan within earshot of the parents of a child with a playground fracture, and patients who hurt plenty might writhe and plead for their turn to be seen.
Not just any hospital volunteer would care to work in the emergency room, and not just any is qualified.
"You have to learn to be absolutely non-judgmental" about the people who appear there as patients or companions of patients, said Guglielmino, who toiled for 71 days at the World Trade Center site following the 9/11 attacks. "You have to learn to love them all."
She and Wood and Memorial's other emergency-room volunteers work a special mission. As with volunteers throughout the hospital, the ER liaisons change beds and run errands for doctors and nurses.
And beyond that, they engage with patients and visitors far more than typical volunteers. Wood, Guglielmino and the other ER volunteers strive to comfort, calm and be of service to the patients and companions whose common denominator is that they're having a miserable day, may be confronting death or disability and would prefer to be just about anywhere else in the world.
Memorial, founded by nuns with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, modeled its program after that of St. John's Health Center of Santa Monica, founded by the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth.
St. John's "Angels of the ER" program trains volunteers to help ease the anxiety produced by the injuries, illnesses, long wait times and inhospitable environment.
At the Santa Monica hospital and at Memorial, volunteers provide blankets and other comfort items to patients and their relatives or other companions. They talk with and assure them, bring them food and beverages if appropriate, sometimes hold their hands and try to keep them informed about wait times, tests and procedures.
"The nurses would love to do what we do, but they haven't got the time," Guglielmino said. "They just don't have the time to do the humanitarian side of it."
The intense demands of the emergency room also keep the volunteers on the go. They typically work four-hour shifts between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m.
"We need roller skates," Guglielmino said.
Wood recalled that a few years ago she tried to help a Florida man who came into the ER with a cancer relapse, as well as his wife and a family friend. It surprised Wood when the man's wife asked her, "Have you been published?"
The woman had been deeply touched and impressed by Wood's caring. She returned home to Florida and spoke to someone she knew at a hospital about the volunteer program in Memorial's emergency room.
Wood and Guglielmino said a long and circuitous chain of events resulted in Flagler Hospital of St. Augustine receiving a grant that will allow the hospital to fly them there to conduct training on the ER angels program.
That invitation led to a second invitation, this one from University of Florida Health in Jacksonville. Eager to share their experience with the Florida hospitals, Wood and Guglielmino accepted and set to work writing a training manual they will take with them on June 23.
"We're looking forward to hearing about what they're doing," said Kari Bates, who manages nonclinical education at Flagler Hospital.
Bates said the Memorial volunteers will speak to Flagler's patient advocates, who are employees rather than volunteers. She said she expects that in the future, the Sonoma County pair's presentation and manual may be of value to Flagler volunteers who become more involved in serving and interacting with patients.
In Jacksonville, Wood and Guglielmini will work with the hospital's volunteer coordinator and leaders in the Nursing and Emergency departments.
As they prepare for the trip, Guglielmino and Wood are hoping this won't be the only time they'll travel to spread word of how trained volunteers can ease the distress of the emergency room.
Their workshop will touch on how richly they are compensated, with gratitude and the sense that they're doing something meaningful for people in acute crisis.
Wood recalled speaking intimately with a woman who sat in Memorial's emergency room, terrified to learn what was causing her such pain. Later, at a supermarket, the woman recognized her and greeted her with a thankful hug.
"That is our pay," Wood said. "That's what we do it for."
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