Beth Am Honorable Mentschens

This story first appeared in Hillel Heroes, a news blog about Hillel alumni on the frontlines of fighting the coronavirus:

“During the COVID-19 pandemic, I am taking a leave of absence from school to work as an EMT in Colorado at DispatchHealth. The company serves as a mobile urgent care, providing medical assistance in people’s homes. We treat a wide breadth of conditions, including infections, lacerations, dehydration, breathing difficulties and much more. Our goal is to help individuals in the comfort of their own residences to avoid potential disease exposure in hospital emergency rooms and urgent care centers. With increased risk from COVID-19 infection, all teams are required to wear masks for the duration of the shift and upgrade personal protective equipment for each patient contact to keep our patients, partners and ourselves as safe as possible.

“In the medical environment, I find myself consistently relying on the skills and values I have honed as a part of the community at Hillel at Stanford. In both my leadership roles at Hillel and patient care responsibilities, I require a high degree of communication, a logical, goal-oriented mindset, critical thinking skills, and most importantly, a sense of empathy. In every healthcare situation, I am guided by the Talmud teaching, “anyone who saves a life is as if he/she saved the entire world” (Sanhedrin 4:5). Each life is sacred, and I am humbled to have a small part in ensuring our society protects as many lives as possible.”

Avi Kaye is the grandson of Beth Am members Tobye and Ron (z"l) Kaye and an emergency medical technician at DispatchHealth in Denver, Colorado. He will return to Stanford University to obtain his degree in human biology after the coronavirus pandemic.