Hi there! To preface this, I am **not** looking for medical advice! I don’t even know what surgery the patients have had, much less feel qualified enough to ask for/give medical advice.
I volunteer in short stay in the hospital (patients stay a couple hours after surgery). One of things I do is take patients up from short stay to the hospital entrance so they can get picked up. It’s quite a ways, so it takes around 5-10 minutes. During this time I really struggle to talk to the patients. I feel obligated to, as the awkward silence doesn’t seem very hospitable, but I’m not very good at small talk. Once a conversation gets going I’m usually pretty good, but 5-10 minutes isn’t much time.
My most successful conversation has basically been
“What’s your name?”
“[Patients name]”
“My name is [me]”
“How do you spell that?”
“[spelling]”
“Ah, what a pretty name.”
“Who’s picking you up?”
“My [marriage partner]”
“Ah, cool, how long have you been married?”
“Uhh, my brain is still a little fuzzy but we got married in [1900s]”
“That’s a long time!”
“Yup. Takes a lot of work. Got together in [1900s]. Probably half of my life now.”
Silence
“So any plans for when you get home?” (Rhetorical question… Of course they’re gonna sleep!!)
“Err I don’t know. I might see if I’m up for watching some TV but I think I’m just gonna sleep”
“That’s good. You probably need some rest anyways”
“Yup.”
“Did your [partner] make any food for when you get home?”
“Nope. We didn’t know if I’d be up for eating so we just grabbed some stuff from the store.”
“Ah, so some sorts of treats?”
“Yeah, [lists off food]”
Then the patient’s ride got there.
My most unsuccessful conversation was when someone spoke about their partner having died a couple years ago and how they died around Christmas. It caught me off guard and I just kinda got stuck and said “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Tried to keep things as anonymous as possible out of respect for patients. Most of the patients are older people if that helps with conversation tips.
Would love advice for conversations and responding to stuff like their partner dying and how to turn the conversation around.