Student publishes book on volunteering

Nicole Pinto/Roundup npinto.roundupnews@gmail.com

It all started in a patient’s room at Kaiser Permanente when David Cherbylnobsky was 17 years old and had just started recording his experiences as a medical volunteer.

The first person he had ever read to could not speak. She was hit by a car on the side of the Los Angeles 101 freeway, and had brain damage.

She couldn’t talk, yet Cherbylnobsky sat by her side as her novel companion. He read his English textbook to her, which included poetry by William Blake and when he was done she said, “Thank you.”

The doctors and nurses came in and they asked me “what did you do?” With my response, I said, “I am like I just read to her.” This is one of the many experiences compiled in his book The Perspective — A Medical Volunteer Experience.

David Chernobylsky now 19, is a Microbiology major at Pierce College, who in the summer of 2012, got his big break when Amazon offered to publish his book.

The Perspective — A Medical Volunteer Experience, offers Chernobylsky’s first hand experiences in the medical field while volunteering at Kaiser Permanente in Woodland Hills.

He started his book in January 1, 2011 and then th program at Kaiser Permanente when he decided to record everything that happened to him given that he had two near death experiences before the time he was 18-years-old. He was afraid of dying, and he wanted to leave something behind.

“I got a second and a third chance at life so I was like I want to do something with it and decided to log everything that I was doing. I logged an entire year,” said Chernobylsky. “The first day of that year (2011) I went to Kaiser and I saved someone’s life. This man was choking in his car at the parking lot. I reacted, put him in the chair, and wheeled him into the emergency room.”

“In the book I was recording everything, my interactions with people and it kind of went from there,” said Cherbylnobsky. “Ever since my experience at Kaiser I kept writing and it flowed.”

He has volunteered at different medical facilities, which include UCLA, Ronald Reagan, USC Tech, and Kaiser Permanente.

Vera Chernobylsky, David’s mother who is also his copyright attorney, was aware that he was taking notes while he volunteering, but didn’t realize that his logs would soon become a book.

“We knew he was taking notes while he was volunteering but we didn’t know that he had taken his writing so seriously,” his mother said. “It was only after he had met with James Bailey, did he let us know that he had the intent to publish the book.”

James Bailey, author of “Man Interrupted” and a Los Angeles Times Best Selling Author, helped

Music

Chernobylsky edit his book and directed him on what do when before he was ready to send his book to publishers.

“He made it not stressful. He toned it down. Honestly I met him there and it kind of just went from there. It was completely unexpected. He really helped me on how to set it up and shoot,” said Chernobylsky on Baileys support.