As of today, I completed and graduated from my last year of my internship-style program. I decided to utilize this post to summarize my experience this month and reflect on what I learned.

I’ll begin my explaining how this program works. I applied for the program during my junior year of high school, and was accepted. Then I completed a month working as a student with my local health system between my junior and senior years of high school. I then had the following summer off, which leads us to now. I go through the month with about thirty other students in my tier.

The program consists of a combination of everything from clinical experiences (shadowing), lectures, presentations, skills practice, research, etc. We met each day my local hospital’s medical school and completed the schedule for the day. Many times we were off campus for other tasks.

For instance, we were required to complete fitness testing at our local health system’s gym across from the hospital. As a result, we were there often, not only to complete fitness testing and yoga, but to also utilize our thirty day free membership!

Overall, this year for me was not as enjoyable as the last time. This could be due to the fact that the program pushes the medical track, and I am a nursing major. I learned a lot from the lectures, but I struggled to maintain enthusiasm.

You can read more about my experience with that in my past Thoughtful Thursdays. These posts summarize how I’ve been feeling and go into more detail than I will here.:

Thoughtful Thursday: Feeling Unaccomplished

What I Learned Shadowing Physicians

Thoughtful Thursday: Stigma Against Nursing Majors

I learned two things from this program:

1.An 8-5 job is not for me.

During the course of this month, we worked five days a week from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., sometimes until 9 p.m. if we had a night ethics lecture. This was tiring, especially since I longer had a passion for the program the hours were tedious. 

2. Nursing IS for me.

The committee for this program, made an effort to re-accept about five of us who were nursing majors. They did this in order to keep the group diverse and make sure that people were sure nursing was for them and not medicine. After doing some shadowing, I truly dislike the role of a physician(no offense to potential/current physicians).

Patient interaction is limited because of the high physician-patient ratio and the level of debt is not worth it. This does not mean I do not respect physicians and aspiring physicians. I simply cannot fathom donating my entire life only to spend the majority of it paying off debt. I not I also have a great passion for bedside care. I am not lazy, or stupid, I have simply found my niche and it happens to be spending twelve hours with a patient and becoming their advocate. 

Make sure to catch-up on my other posts if you have not yet. How are you guys liking Thoughtful Thursdays? Are there any specific topics you would like me to discuss next time?