She Volunteered for This One

CSUF's Goodhue-McWilliams Winner Didn't Just Study, She Put in the Time

May 15, 2008 :: No. 258

Laura Pasternack of Santa Ana has a dream to become a doctor and serve the needs of both children and the homeless on L.A.'s Skid Row.

A first big step toward that goal will be completed when she wraps up the last few classes for a bachelor's degree in biological science in December.

But she also has shown her commitment to those two groups through community service performed while a student at Cal State Fullerton. In recognition of her efforts, she is this year's recipient of the university's Kenneth L. Goodhue-McWilliams Award for outstanding community service in the health professions.

The Goodhue-McWilliams Award is named for the emeritus professor of biological science who sponsors the annual prize, which is among the top honors awarded during commencement. Pasternack will be recognized during the university's 2008 Honors Convocation May 16.

A high grade point average is required to win the award, but this prize doesn't go to students who spent their undergraduate years living with books to get a high GPA.

While maintaining those high grades in biological science, Pasternack gave of her time - 1,511 hours, or nearly 38 40-hour weeks, between August 2003 and March 2008.

As a Child Life volunteer at Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC), Pasternack managed the Oncology-Hematology and Oncology Intensive Care Unit playroom, trained other volunteers, assisted staff and worked on special events, including CHOC's ninth annual Cancer Survivors' and Cancer Awareness days.

She also organized special events "just because I could," such as the 'pom-pom fights,' in which she and the young patients in isolation throw hundreds of small fuzzy balls at each other.

"Although it can be emotionally difficult at times, I cherish the time [spent with the] sick children and helping them to remember what it means to be a kid," Pasternack said.

At Hospice Touch in Orange County, where she served from November 2004 through March of this year, Pasternack gave comfort and support to terminally ill patients and family members. In April 2005, she was honored with the Hospice Touch Volunteer Award.

"I have been able to devote myself to five admirable women on hospice care. One of my activities included compiling a poet's life's works," Pasternack said of the experience, adding that she also helped families, by speaking at memorial services and even dog-sitting so family members could attend funerals.

On L.A's Skid Row, she volunteered with Hospitality Kitchen and Hospitality Clinic.

"I started as a volunteer in the soup kitchen," Pasternack recalled. "Serving meals each week, I began to realize a common trend - many of these men and women are in terrible physical and mental states. By expressing concern over this, I came into contact with Dr. Carla Toms."

Pasternack ended up helping Toms, doing everything from organizing the medical closet and labeling shelves to creating files for patients' charts and bringing in donations. She took patients' vital statistics and histories and, on occasion, rushed a patient to the hospital and stayed all day as the patient's advocate.

Eventually, Pasternack became clinic coordinator and wrote the Hospitality Clinic Volunteer Manual, as well as the vision and values statements.

In addition, she volunteered at the Lenox Health Fair, the Red Cross, the Peer Health Organization at Cal State Fullerton's Student Health and Counseling Center, and mentored another student in chemistry and biology.

Through the Gamma Phi Beta sorority, Pasternack served with Campfire USA, was a delegate for the Resident Student Association in the campus residence halls and as a leader in the Student Health Professions Association, she served as allied health chair and secretary-treasurer.

A participant in the University Honors Program, Pasternack has been conducting research into the role of fibroblasts in tumor-cell development since fall 2004, under the guidance of David Drath, professor of biological science.

She did good deeds as a Girl Scout, but realized how much serving others meant to her only later, when she was an exchange student in New Zealand in 2002. While there, her host mother was hired to create the Hawkes Bay Chapter of the New Zealand Deaf Association. Pasternack volunteered to work at the center. "It was the first time I learned the true meaning of community service," she said.

Now she's torn. She derived such strength and sense of purpose from helping the children at CHOC, and such satisfaction helping the underserved on L.A.'s Skid Row, that she doesn't know how she might reconcile the two when she becomes a physician. And she will become a physician, she said. She has been sure of that for a long time.

At this point, she thinks she'll do both. She may work in pediatric oncology, establish a practice, then use that as leverage to open a free clinic for those on Skid Row. It will take a lot of work, but she's good at that.

The Goodhue-McWilliams winner said she is applying now to medical schools. It is too soon to have gotten responses, but, she said simply, "I just hope I am accepted by a good one."

Photo: Available online at www.fullerton.edu/newsphotos

Media Contacts:
Russ L. Hudson, Public Affairs, 657-278-4007 or rhudson@fullerton.edu

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