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Student interns immersed in medical fields

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School is the gateway to the rest of the world, and in the case of 12 Polson High School students, school is helping connect them to real world experience in the medical field.

This year, St. Joseph Medical Center and Polson High School partnered together to offer 12 students, mostly seniors and a few juniors, the opportunity to do a health occupations internship program during the last hour and a half of the school day. The program, designed to expose the students to different facets of the medical field, is in its pilot year, and going well, according to Tammy Kelley, the coordinator for the internship at the high school. To qualify for the program, the students had to fill out an extensive application that included a resume, transcript, personal statement, and a letter of recommendation. After that, they sat in front of an interview panel that included most of the department heads at the hospital and Kelley. The 12 students who received the internship were chosen at the end of last school year. The program began when school started last fall.

The first nine weeks of the internship were spent taking different courses taught by department heads, Emergency Medical Technicians, and the MedStar helicopter crew. They got to tour the medical helicopter and learn about all the different components. The students took extensive notes and completed different worksheets during the classes. In addition, they had to get certified in CPR and first aid, get trained in the privacy laws, learn an extensive array of medical terms, and have sterile technique training.

After the first nine weeks, the students rotate to different departments every two weeks, where they shadow the physicians and learn the inner workings of each area.

“There are 12 departments we rotate through, one for each student,” said Nathan Young, one of the senior interns.

The departments range from surgery to lab work to the emergency department to the walk-in clinic and everything in between. Not many high school students get that in-depth knowledge of the different aspects of the medical field, which is a benefit when they are looking into what they want to pursue later down the road, according to Ben Murray, the director of clinic operations who first proposed the idea of the internship.

“It takes them out of ‘I want to be a nurse.’ It kind of gives them a focus,” Murray said.

Along with a focus, the internship provides the students with school credit and internship hours.

“We get to take 270 internship hours to college,” said Chadelle Smith, another one of the interns.

For anyone looking at a job in medicine, that many internship hours will come in handy.

“It’s been amazing for the students,” Kelley said.

The students are developing leadership skills and learning to work well with patients and hospital staff and all the while getting an in depth knowledge of the medical arena.

“I learned a whole bunch about anatomy,” Young said. “(The health internship) teaches you valuable skills.”

It can be a big time commitment for the students, like when they miss school to observe a surgery or when something runs late, but it also is a great opportunity to do something that most high school students don’t get the chance to do.

It’s not just the students who are benefiting from the internship. Everyone involved in the process, from the physicians to the nurses, are improving as well.

“Anytime you talk about what you are doing aloud, you get better at it,” Murray said. The physicians are more engaged in their work, and the community is excited about the partnership, he said.

The school and hospital are hoping that the internship will become a yearly endeavor.

“The plan is to continue and evaluate on an ongoing basis and improve the program,” Murray said.

The applications for next year’s internship will be available in February, and they will pick the interns mid-April.

Shelley Quinn is the executive assistant at the hospital and the student coordinator for the internship. 

“My involvement with it was arranging the speakers; I think we had 32 speakers, and then coordinating with each of our departments within the hospital,” said Quinn.

 Quinn is working alongside Kelley to ensure that the program runs smoothly and continues to be a positive experience for the students, the hospital, and the community.

 

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