实习 with urban primary care center focuses nursing major on career options

While sharing information about nutrition, birth control and diabetes last summer, 凯特琳塞拉斯 experienced what it would be like to have face-to-face interactions with patients in a clinic. The nursing student at 东门诺大学 said the opportunity helped increase her confidence and learn about holistic approaches to patient care.

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塞拉斯在 玛丽的中心在欧洲经济联盟学习期间，她在社区卫生中心工作 华盛顿社区学者中心. WCSC programs run in the fall and spring semesters, and in the summer. Students are placed in internships relevant to their majors and prospective career paths; they benefit from vocational mentoring and career exploration.

护理, pre-med and other pre-professional health sciences majors have great opportunities in Washington D.C. for challenging internships that complement their programs of study and help them better understand the life experiences of the patients they’ll be working with as professional clinicians, 项目主管说 Ryan Good教授. 

The program has a strong reputation for placing students in internships that often lead to full-time job offers after graduation.

“WCSC’s program has enabled our nursing students to gain experience in the health care field that significantly broadens their perspective and prepares them for the workforce,” 梅洛迪·卡什教授本科护理项目主任. “我们的学生带着更大的信心回来, 提高技能, and practical knowledge gleaned from interacting with colleagues in the field.”

实习s such as those offered through WCSC also provide nursing students with valuable professional references when they begin job hunting, 现金补充道. “These experiences always provide opportunities to not only show capacity for but also grow in professional communication, 团队合作, 协作和组织能力.”

下面是塞拉斯关于她的更多经历:

How does your experience at WCSC build on nursing coursework and experiences? 

Being a nurse in a hospital and being a nurse anywhere else look completely different. In 玛丽的中心 I was able to see nurses in roles that I did not even know were nursing fields. 例如, 他们的员工健康护士进行了N95健康测试, 查看员工健康记录, 处理员工疾病报告, 数据分析, 还有更多. 

This internship allowed me to get a better understanding of patient populations. In community health you can get to know your patients and form a connection that allows for trust and long-term education. You can see patterns in the communities that you are serving and learn what needs to be done to address the larger issues that are causing health discrepancies. 例如, 玛丽的中心 mainly serves low income Latinx populations in DC and Maryland and because of that focus, they gained an understanding of community needs and what might address those needs. 

你对自己有什么了解? 

次数太多，数不清, I have gotten the question about what line of nursing I would like to go into after school. The opportunity to speak to nurses in different positions in 玛丽的中心 allowed me to bounce my ideas off of them and get insight into how their journeys in nursing looked. This has given me greater confidence in my plans for nursing and has helped me focus in on what I would like to do in healthcare. 

你会带什么技能?

在护理学校, 大多数病人教育工作都是理论性的, 所以我确实受益于实习机会. I was able to observe educational appointments about nutrition, birth control, and diabetes. 我还学习了ecclinicalworks, the software that 玛丽的中心 and many other practices use for health records and practice management. 

和我们分享一下你实习的亮点吧.

One day, I paired with a medical assistant to travel to two patient homes. 在便利的远程医疗方案中, MA可以测量生命体征, 画实验室, 给疫苗, 用技术把病人和他们的医生联系起来. The MA I was paired with told me how she finds this line of work to be extremely fulfilling. The patients who qualify for the facilitated telemedicine program are usually homebound and have chronic health conditions. We discussed how this also allows 玛丽的中心 to provide holistic care and address the patient’s social determinants of health. The MA is able to help patients apply for food supplementation programs, 给案例经理提供参考, 评估他们的家庭环境.

If you could change something about healthcare, what would you change?

Healthcare is expensive; we all know this. 我不知道解决这个问题的最好方法. People who are low income and/or are uninsured are stuck dealing with health conditions that worsen because they are unable to seek treatment and they are unable to afford preventive care. Washington DC has DC Healthcare Alliance which provides medical insurance to “low-income District residents who have no other health insurance and are not eligible for either Medicaid or Medicare.” Residents are eligible for DC Alliance regardless of immigration status, and many patients in 玛丽的中心 utilize this program to help with their healthcare needs.