Time means nothing in a hospital.
As a volunteer at Tucson Medical Center, Linda Kunsberg often conveys this message to patients who arrive for surgery or their loved ones waiting for the procedure to be over.
She explains to patients that the time their doctor told them to arrive is just for checking in; their surgery won’t start for another two hours, or more if the doctor is delayed by an operation that takes longer than expected.
As for family members waiting to see a patient after surgery, that’s in the hands of the nurses. Kunsberg has to wait for their call, and many nurses won’t allow visitors until the patient has fully woken from the anesthesia.
Kunsberg has volunteered on Monday afternoons on the third floor of TMC’s orthopedic and surgical tower since 2012.
“I absolutely enjoy and love it,” she says, noting that while some people get frustrated and yell at her for things out of her control, most are grateful for the services of the volunteers.
After the staff checks a patient in, Kunsberg notes their companion’s information. She also gives the friend or family member the patient’s tracking number, showing them how to follow the patient’s progress on monitors in the lobby, where different colors indicate pre-op, surgery, and other stages until the patient is discharged or moved to another floor for recovery.
Kunsberg is one of TMC’s cadre of more than 440 volunteers.
“There are so many advantages to having a strong volunteer force, whether it is reducing payroll costs or having individuals with a wide experience, but the greatest advantage is the heart of the volunteers,” says Jim Marten, TMC’s director of volunteers since March 2020.
“The volunteers bring such care and compassion to wherever they are participating in the hospital,” he adds.
During his first two years at TMC, there were periods when volunteers were not allowed in the hospital due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It was heartening to see how many volunteers wanted to continue volunteering throughout the COVID crisis, Marten says.
Jewish community member Barbara Esmond, who started volunteering at TMC three or four years before the COVID epidemic, figured she’d be a good fit for the neonatal intensive care unit because twins run in her family, so she’s comfortable handling tiny babies.
After learning the NICU and pediatrics are the hospital’s most popular volunteer slots, she was happy to accept a temporary assignment on a surgical floor.
When an opening in the NICU came up, she decided not to move, because she finds her work rewarding, whether it’s getting coffee for the parents of a child in surgery, who are not supposed to leave the surgical floor, or just talking to someone to help relieve their anxiety.
Esmond spent her working life as a garment contractor in a sewing factory. But she was a candy-striper in elementary and junior high school and later volunteered in hospitals in other cities as an adult.
Esmond also leads the Tucson chapter of the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework and volunteers with Hadassah Southern Arizona and Congregation Bet Shalom.
Kunsberg’s professional career was likewise unrelated to medicine. She was a configuration manager for Hughes Missile Systems and Raytheon for almost 40 years.
“I’ve got to be busy,” says Kunsberg, who often fills in for other TMC volunteers in addition to her shift and volunteers for the Arizona Bowl, political campaigns, and the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona’s annual campaign.
Fay Green started volunteering at TMC in 2016; she’d spent 30 years as an administrator in a vascular surgeon’s office.
“I was used to being around patients, people that were ill and needed comforting,” says Green, who heard about TMC’s volunteer program from a fellow Anshei Israel congregant, Linda Silverman.
Green has volunteered at other medical nonprofits, including Planned Parenthood, and has been on the Tucson International Jewish Film Festival committee for the last 12 years.
She started at TMC near the intensive care unit and cardiac catheterization laboratory but took a break when she and her husband went to Israel for his sabbatical. For the past three years, Green has volunteered in the second-floor surgical lobby.
“I feel like I’m doing a good deed for patients, and a really good deed to my heart,” she says.
Green notes that the second floor provides everything from outpatient procedures to open-heart surgeries.
“Fortunately, we have a quiet room or meditation room,” she says, for families that need more privacy.
Sometimes, she says, people are excited after getting the doctor’s post-surgery report and want someone to hug, “because everything is so much better than they thought. And so, we’re there.”
Silverman, a TMC volunteer since 2008, works in the NICU.
“The joyous part of the job is interacting with the babies, holding or feeding them,” she says. But often the nurses and the babies’ parents have everything under control and she spends her time folding laundry.
Silverman worked for the University of Arizona from 1992 to 2007, providing support in the pediatric cardiology division, followed by pediatric nephrology, and finally in the applied mathematics program.
“I really liked working with the medical students and the residents” because of their maturity and dedication. she says. The same was true of master’s and doctoral students in applied math.
Silverman took a break from volunteering when her husband, Shelby, became ill, but returned to TMC for a weekly two-hour shift a few months after his death in June 2023.
Silverman volunteers with the JPSA campaign and reads Torah at Anshei Israel. She also participates in the nationwide Women’s Health Initiative study, which, she explains, “is based on the reality that most medical research is done on men.”
Her volunteerism is partly inspired by her father, who logged 9,000 hours as a volunteer at the San Diego Hebrew Home for the Aged and lived to be 96.
Another Silverman, Judy, is Green’s volunteer partner on the second floor of TMC’s surgical tower.
Judy has also volunteered in TMC’s Ronald McDonald room, a respite area for people visiting the NICU, pediatrics, and labor and delivery. She still substitutes there on occasion.
Like Green, Judy spent most of her career in the medical field, working in front and back-office positions. She grew up on Long Island but has lived in Tucson for 47 years.
“I’m a frustrated nurse,” she says, explaining that she attended nursing school in Manhattan, including working with drug-addicted babies at Beth Israel Hospital, but dropped out when she was still in her late teens. To this day, she reads medical books and journals to stay abreast of the latest advances.
Judy, who opted for early retirement 13 years ago, used to volunteer two days a week at TMC. But she also plays mah jongg three times a week and decided she needed one free weekday for errands and appointments.
“We have a wonderful group of women — and men — who volunteer. I think they’re just very caring people,” Judy says. “It’s fascinating to me. I learn something new all the time.”
“Hopefully, I make a difference in someone’s life.”
