Internship Update

Since last September I have been interning at our local hospital for four hours twice a week. I love seeing the different medical procedures first hand. I have witnessed the insertion of PICC lines on patients, vitals being taken, IVs, patients being discharged, and reports of all the patients in the hospital. I have delivered a specimen to the lab, towels, blankets, and snacks to patients. Additionally, I've learned how to answer patient calls from the rooms, page nurses, and I have copied down the hospital schedule. Everyone there is extremely friendly and they all tell me how much I am going to love being a nurse. It is very inspiring to be involved in a field where the workers have such a strong passion for their jobs. There is an abundance of people in my life that work in the medical field and it is awesome to talk to them about my experience. Now, I feel like I can relate more and understand what they are describing because I witnessed it. The best part is seeing the gratitude the patients have when they have been helped through their medical situations. However as I have seen from following the nurse, it can be hard to please every patient with a mass amount of patients that have to be cared for as well. Through these past couple of months I have discovered that I want to be involved in some hands-on activity, but not everything. It has made me look into becoming a nurse practitioner. I will be able to do a little more than a nurse, but less than a surgeon. I feel that for me it would be a perfect balance. As I continue my internship I would really enjoy watching some surgeries. I have talked to my nurse about it and it can be difficult because most surgeries are during the morning. So far the nurse has worked more weekdays and I am in school during that time. I am going to go in on the weekends that she works and ask if I could watch the surgery. The nurses want us to have as much exposure as possible, it is just a matter of my schedule working with the hospital schedule. It would be ideal if I could intern on the weekend and a patient has surgery at that time.