Earning her stripes

Lindsay Sandham

Candy, anyone?

How about a caring, energetic and responsible candy striper who’s

just about as sweet?

That’s Katelin Patterson.

The 17-year-old Corona del Mar High School senior has been

donating her time and generosity to Hoag Hospital’s Junior Auxiliary

as a volunteer. The program at Hoag takes 150 junior volunteers at a

time, ages 14 to 18, who each donate a minimum of nine hours a month.

Many high school students start off as hospital volunteers to

fulfill the 40 hours of required community service to graduate. Some

enjoy it so much they continue, including Patterson, who has around

400 hours of hospital service under her belt.

“It’s so emotionally enriching because it’s so personal,” she said

of her work at the hospital. “I think everyone should give back.

Everyone should go out there and do something for someone they don’t

know in a cause that they see fit.”

After serving as Junior Auxiliary president for the last year,

Patterson will be handing the title over to her successor because she

is graduating in June.

“I basically keep the whole thing together,” she said. “I’m

basically the in-between person between our advisors, who talk to the

hospital, and my peers.”

As president, Patterson oversees a board of 17 candy stripers.

“We’ve devised a board so they [the volunteers] can acquire some

leadership skills,” said Hoag Junior Auxiliary advisor Jackie Raluy.

“She [Patterson] is delightful, very responsible. She’s made candy

striping stronger, and she just does a great job.”

With dreams of someday becoming a child psychologist, Patterson

said she enjoys exploring people’s psyches and learning how the mind

works. She said her work at Hoag helped with the decision of what

career path she plans to follow.

“I knew I had to do something medical because it just fascinates

me,” she said. “I love being one on one with a person and feel like

I’m making a difference ... but as far as whittling it down to what I

actually want to do, I realized that I just love talking to people,

and maybe I don’t want to fix someone’s broken arm, but I do want to

find out what’s going on mentally.”

She said she would like to work with children because she feels

it’s necessary to start working with mental or emotional problems at

an early age, in order to head off bigger problems in the future.

One of Patterson’s favorite things to do as a candy striper is to

spend time with the patients.

“At the hospital, people are always poking at you and prodding at

you,” she said. “People tend to think they’re not being looked at as

people. I think that when you sit in a room with them and listen to

them, it really makes them feel like a person, not just a patient.”

Perhaps it’s her love of people that earned Patterson the Super

Striper award. The monthly award, which is voted on by all the

volunteers, recognizes a candy striper who regularly goes above and

beyond the call of duty.

Patterson said there have been many times when she didn’t know

exactly what to do and needed to think on her feet to respond to a

situation.

“As far as experiences, you have experiences everyday,” she said.

“There’s never a dull moment when you’re in a hospital.”