I was 14 when I started volunteering. Most of the time, it was during the summer at my local community hospital. I rotated through various units and administrative offices, but my favorite place was the gift shop. I loved helping people find unique items and choosing gifts for their loved ones. I also picked up the skill of gift wrapping, which is useful to this day. At that age, I didn’t know I wanted to be a nurse or even work in healthcare. But I loved spending time at the hospital and collected over 1,000 hours of volunteering by the time I graduated high school.
I was 9 when my family immigrated to the United States from Armenia. During my teenage years, my parents worked multiple jobs and long hours to support the family. My siblings and I had many unsupervised hours, and volunteering seemed like a good way to spend time outside of school. The extracurricular time never felt like a burden because it was an activity that I did with my older sister and best friend. We got to spend time together during our breaks and while we walked home after our shifts. From an early age, volunteering provided new skills outside of what I learned in school, such as communicating and connecting with people outside of my immediate circle and learning to be compassionate at a time when patients and their families were at the worst time of their lives.
For my undergraduate program, I pursued neuroscience at UCLA. I felt too busy to volunteer during those first few years of college. It wasn’t until I started nursing as a second degree at Mount Saint Mary’s University that my passion for serving was reignited by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. I had the privilege to spend time with the retired Sisters and assist the poor and homeless through various community activities across Los Angeles. Through their work, the Sisters educated, advocated, and took action to promote social justice. These experiences provided a broader community perspective that I was missing.
My first clinical position after nursing school was in the Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center. The unit had pediatric and adult transplant and surgical patients, but I was only trained with adult patients at the time. A nurse colleague I didn’t know so well asked me if I would be interested in volunteering for a medical mission with Mending Kids International in Guayaquil, Ecuador. I was so honored to be asked! I requested the time off from my manager and prepared as much as possible. Even though I had limited pediatric experience, my colleague partnered with me to train and evaluate my skills in the recovery unit. During the 10 days we were there, we recovered 20 post-surgical pediatric patients of different ages after open heart surgery. The children and their families we cared for had incredible resilience, and I saw how they embraced life despite the many challenges.
The trip to Ecuador opened my mind to the power of networking and connecting with colleagues around the globe. In Ecuador, I bonded with a pediatric nurse from San Diego, California, who was originally from Malta. Later that summer, my new friend invited me to visit her country when I was in Europe for a family event. At the time, I did not even know where Malta was located on the map. This opportunity provided a fun adventure of learning about the country's history, seeing underground air raid shelters used during World War II, and swimming in the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. My friend's sister was also a practicing nurse in Malta, so we spent hours exchanging healthcare stories and comparing the similarities and differences in our clinical practices. It was global nursing at its best.
As I matured professionally, I strongly desired to travel to Armenia and serve as a healthcare provider in my motherland. In 2015, one of my friends notified me of an opportunity with the Armenian American Health Professionals Organization (AAHPO) located in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. They were looking for medical volunteers to travel to Armenia. I was so excited and felt like that was my chance to give back! AAHPO had partnered with the Children of Armenia Fund, a local organization that provided resources to children and adults to advance rural communities through innovation. During our full week of service, the interdisciplinary team of family medicine, OBGYN, ophthalmology, pediatricians, psychiatry, and nursing provided primary care services to more than 300 patients in rural villages. We worked alongside the local healthcare providers with the goal of sharing knowledge and understanding the availability of resources in the public health space. I learned how critical it was to build local capacity among rural practitioners to maintain the long-term sustainability of health services and create a healthier quality of life for the people we serve.
Volunteering locally in my community has also challenged my thinking and impacted my journey. I have been a cabin counselor and camp nurse for children with heart disease, administered flu shots, glucose, and cholesterol monitoring at community health fairs, hosted multiple charity fundraisers, organized a donation drive for homeless youth, mentored youth through various mentorship programs, arranged food and packages at the food bank, and conducted COVID-19 wellness checks and administered vaccines. These experiences have expanded my public health knowledge and ways to improve education and healthcare.
Through it all, Sigma has been a strong presence in my life, from bedside nursing to healthcare administration to my PhD program. Since my induction as a nurse leader into Gamma Tau at-Large Chapter, there have been numerous opportunities to grow in scholarship, leadership, and service.
Locally, I have served as a Leadership Succession Committee member (2010-2012), vice president (2012-2014), president-elect (2014-2016), president (2016-2018), and treasurer (2018-present).
Regionally, I have volunteered for the Poster Committee (2010-2015) and served as the Chair (2015, 2016) of the Southern California Odyssey Committee and Conference.
Internationally, I served as a member of the Next Generation Leaders Task Force (2014-2017), designed to develop strategies to engage new leaders in the organization, and the Digital Transformation and Engagement Task Force (2018), intended to make recommendations to increase digital communications with members and enhance the ability to work together virtually.
Additionally, I have served as a delegate at Sigma’s biennial conventions (2015, 2017, and soon 2023) and presented multiple sessions at the biennial convention, Creating Healthy Work Environments, and International Nursing Research Congress. Each service experience has been critical to my personal and professional growth.
As you can see, through volunteering, I’ve discovered many new skills and talents that have made me a better person and a stronger leader. The various opportunities have allowed me the freedom to experiment and see what brings me joy. Often these activities were outside of my comfort zone. These experiences not only expanded my knowledge and perspective but also impacted my future path. When I saw my strengths and areas of improvement in action, I learned to adopt a growth mindset. In addition, I have honed my influence and expanded my network globally to at least six of the seven continents. I have seen how the phrase, “The world is your oyster. It's up to you to find the pearls.” by Chris Gardner, apply to my experiences.
Anna Dermenchyan, PhD, RN, CCRN-K, CPHQ, is the Director of Quality for the Department of Medicine at UCLA Health. In this role, she leads improvement initiatives, strategic planning, program development and execution, organizational processes, and policy improvements. She is a member of Sigma’s Gamma Tau at-Large Chapter.