My name is Blair Jones and I am currently a senior at Loyola University Chicago. I am currently majoring in Biology, with a minor in Psychology, and I plan on attending medical school next fall. Being a pre-medical student, I knew volunteering at a hospital was going to be a must during my time as an undergraduate if I wanted to get accepted to medical school. My first interactions with Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago (then Children's Memorial Hospital) was when my sorority went there to do crafts with children. This first exposure got me interested in the hospital, especially since it combined my passion for working with children and interest in medicine. At the end of my first year as an undergrad I called Children's Memorial and my timing worked out just right that they still had volunteer spots available. I felt like I got lucky once again during my volunteer interview because they just happened to have an opening for an Infant Care volunteer during my available times ( I have now learned just how long some people had to wait to move into infant care from other volunteering positions). I started volunteering that summer and have been with the hospital ever since.

As mentioned, I am extremely passionate about both medicine and children. Through my life experiences and volunteering I have also realized I am particularly passionate about infants and their health care and developmental processes. I began at Children's as an infant care volunteer, which meant I got to see any children of ages 0-3 years old throughout the entire hospital. I really enjoyed this position because I got to see patients of different ages and with a variety of conditions. Seeing such a variety helped illuminate the wonderful work the hospital was doing. Whether I was assigned to work with a three year old or a three month old, the hospital staff was incredibly attentative to the child's individual needs and care. Although I loved my original position at Children's, I was really excited when I became a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) volunteer at the start of my junior year.

I think my passion for infants arrises partly from the fact that I gained four half-siblings between the time when I turned eleven and when I turned fourteen. Within these three years I went to countless medical appointments (both obstetrician and pediatrian), learned all about prenatal care and development from my mother and step-mother, and finally was in the hospital room when my mother gave birth. These experiences sparked my interests, which have been developing ever since. Being in the NICU lets me learn more about the experiences of premature infants, while allowing me to be a part of the infant's development process. One of the strengths of Lurie Children's is that the hospital focuses on all aspects of patient care. They realize that there is more to a patient's wellness than just the medical care, and they employ staff members and volunteers to address a variety of these aspects. As a volunteer, I enjoy supplementing some of the medical care with another important quality for infant development, which is human interaction. Sometimes this means rocking a child to sleep, and sometimes this means playing with a bored infant. In the end, it makes me happy to know that I am helping the staff and the patients by providing comfort and play.