Final Internship Blog

Describe your POL preparation process. What presentation tools are you planning to use? Are you relying on notes, a memorized talk, something else? How are you preparing for questions you might be asked? What are you planning to wear?


For my internship POL I plan on showing a powerpoint describing the different parts of the lab that I have been working in. After showing the powerpoint I will take everyone through the lab so they can actually see how everything I mentioned in the presentation actually works. A lot of what I will be talking about is memorization and just things that you need to know when working in a hospital clinical lab. I will be able to show them the lab, and hopefully the ER and maybe the ICU. I've been preparing for questions that I might be asked by asking questions in the lab and make sure I understand what actually gets done in the lab and why. I plan on wearing professional clothing and my lab coat. That is my everyday attire at internship and its a requirement to wear the lab coat.

Internship #6

What are social interactions like in your workplace? Do people spend a lot of time socializing? Are people isolated, doing their own things? Lots of collaboration on work projects? Not much collaboration? How does the social dynamic impact or reflect the organization's work?

Communication is key in a hospital. There are so many things that could go wrong if there is no communication between people. The wrong test could be ordered, wrong operations, anything could go wrong. At the hospital people communicate from ICU, ER, lab, the floors, and anywhere else in the hospital with pagers and cell phones. Each area in the hospital has their own code/number that can be called if something needs to be picked up or a patient needs a draw or anything.

Internship #5

What are you thankful for in your internship experience?

I am extremely thankful for this whole experience. I am so interested in everything in the medical field and this internship has opened my eyes to all the different areas of the field. I've gotten to see the ICU, ER, Pathology lab, Clinical Lab, Endoscopy, the floors, etc, and not many people my age get to see all of that. I've had the opportunity to follow both a pathologist and a phlebotomist and see how different their jobs are. I am very thankful for Rosie, one of the phlebotomists in the lab. She has really taken the time to show me and teach me everything she could possibly think of. She has taken me to every part of the hospital so I get a feel for my surroundings and she has given my some resources to help me with further learning and for my POL. I'm also very thankful for Dr. Stayboldt, my mentor. She's the one that really helped me through the whole process of actually being able to have this as my internship. She let me know all the paperwork that I had to get filled out and turned in as well as all the tests I had to take before being allowed to do this. Without her help the whole process would have been very difficult. She is also a wonderful teacher. She has let me look through the microscope at all the different cells for each case and along the way she'll tell me what we're looking for and what each cell is and what it does. I have also gotten to watch her dissect several different body parts such as placentas, a foot, a toe, uterus, kidney, teeth, etc. I am so grateful for everything that I have gotten to do during my internship.

Internship #4

Describe a technical/skill challenge you faced in that affects your ability to complete your project.

Because I am at a hospital there are things I can and cannot do. I am allowed to go get pick-ups in the ER, ICU and on the floors and then observe everything else. Because I am not allowed to actually really DO anything with the specimens it makes it really hard to think of a project I can do for my time at internship. After talking to my mentor and Brandon about it we decided that it would be o.k. for me to do an observation based project with pictures of things that I have seen during my project. We also thought that it would be a good idea for me to basically follow a specimen through each of its stages in the lab.

Internship #3

2. What is the biggest challenge face at your internship?

This week at internship was full of many surprises. I saw so many things that I never thought I would be able to see at the age of 16. One thing I got to see was a Code Blue. In a hospital a Code Blue is when a patient stops breathing and/or or their heart stops, in other words, they start to die.

I was on the 4th floor of the hospital when the nurse in the ICU called a code blue. The phlebotomist that I was with told me to go down to the ICU to see what was happening. When I got there, there was a doctor leaning over the unresponsive patient pumping his chest and about 8 nurses around him. There was something about knowing that this patient could very well die right before my eyes was extremely challenging for me. I think that sometimes at internship I forget that I am dealing with actual people in the hospital. I almost feel like I am on one of those TV shows. It's a surreal feeling.

Luckily the patient surrived.

Internship #2

What are you most surprised by during your first week of internship and why?

I am most surprised about how much work is actually done in the lab. Being accident prone I have had my share of hospital visits and having to have blood drawn and tests done and I never really thought about all the work that actually goes into making sure the right tests are done and how hard it might be to keep track of one persons blood samples because there are hundreds maybe thousands of peoples blood in there at once. I am also surprised about how much I actually get to do. I have complete access to the whole hospital, including the break room, and I get to see things that most high school students don't get to see. I am 16 years old and I've seen two placentas be grossed, a uterus, I've watched someone draw blood from a patient, I've picked up samples from the ER, seen stool be put onto slides... I've seen it all. I can't wait to see what the next weeks have in store for me.

Internship #1

What are you excited about, nervous about and wondering about?

I am so extremely excited for my internship. I am find everything medical related to be so fascinating and interesting. When I grow up I want to be a Medical Examiner and so working in the Pathology Lab in Scripps Mercy Chula Vista is such an amazing opportunity. I am most excited about seeing all the different organs and body parts come through the lab and the steps it takes to go through the grossing process. Thankfully I do not faint at the sight of blood because there is more blood in that lab than you could every imagine. Blood in bottles, tubes, bags, just everywhere. I am most nervous about fitting in in the environment. Because I am working in a hospital all the people I see all day are many years older than me and I tend to tense up around grown-ups. Luckily they are all very nice and have all welcomed me in with open arms and I really feel that think is going to be a very positive experience.