Parkland Volunteer Logs More than 11,000 Hours

DALLAS (WBAP/KLIF) – Parkland Hospital is recognizing one of its most dedicated volunteers.

For 38 years, Marilyn White has been a volunteer at Parkland Health & Hospital System. Her first experience at Parkland came when she was visiting a friend who was hospitalized with one of the earliest insulin pumps in 1979.

“It was on that visit that I looked around and thought, I want to be here,” White said.

To White, practicing medicine involves lifting the spirits of every patient, staff and visitor with whom she comes in contact. Whether it’s her smile, a gentle hug or a chocolate kiss, she treats everyone at Parkland as family because, she says, “they are family.” Every Monday and Thursday, White signs the registry in Parkland’s Volunteer & Guest Services department. These days she logs in with a few clicks on a computer, whereas in days gone by it was signing a well-worn journal. But every volunteered hour, all 11,275 of them, is close to her heart. Mondays are spent in Palliative Care where patients are facing a serious illness. The program’s goal is to improve the quality of life for both the patient and the family.

“Marilyn is really quite a miraculous person and a real hero. She brings genuine warmth and love to the patients in the Palliative Care clinic in such a healing way that she makes everyone – patients, providers, and families – feel better,” said Elizabeth Paulk, MD, who leads Parkland’s Palliative Care Program, is a professor of Internal Medicine and was recently named Distinguished Professor in Palliative Care at UT Southwestern Medical Center. “We value her tremendously as a core member of our team.”

Thursdays are spent in Parkland’s Emergency Department where she trains new volunteers who are often just embarking on what may prove to be a lifetime of service to others.

According to Alondra King, Assistant Service Manager in Parkland’s Emergency Department, White “can run circles around all of us.” Her trademark ‘kisses’ and hugs bring smiles to patients and staff. Marilyn genuinely loves people.”

White began her volunteer career in Parkland’s newborn nursery and laughs as she talks about the ACC, another of her early assignments. “Oh my gosh, the Ambulatory Care Clinic. It’s not even there anymore! And pedi-trauma on 2 South South,” she said, her smile fading for a brief instant. “That was hard.”

Once White made her decision in October 1979 to become a Parkland volunteer, there have been very few weeks that White hasn’t donned her uniform and handed out her signature kisses. Except for homecoming and special events at her beloved alma mater The University of Texas at Austin. The die-hard Longhorn fan may wear orange, but in her words, “she bleeds purple, Parkland purple.”