Internship in ED this fall

During our 3rd (of 4) semester, my class was given the opportunity to apply for internships with some of our local hospitals. We get 1 unit of course credit for the experience, and it's a good networking opportunity as well as a way to get more hands on skills and experience.

We put in our application (a cover letter, a resume) to a person in the education department of a group of hospitals, told her which unit was our 1st, 2nd, 3rd preference, etc and then waited to hear back. I said emergency department first, NICU second, ICU third. We've gotten to do "outrotations" from clinical to some other areas in the department. So, so far, I've seen med surg, ICU, ED, Peds, mother-baby, NICU, L&D and OR. The outrotations that I was the most excited about so far have been the emergency dept and NICU. I was torn about which to put first, however the hospital that was offering a NICU internship was quite a bit farther away. Also, I thought I'd get a better broad experience and wider variety of skills in the ED.

I had an interview with the ED department manager over the summer. I believe ED was the only department that actually had us students come in person for an interview; the others were phone interviews. Three of us got placed in the ED at this hospital. During our third semester of the RN program, we have 2 days of regular school clinical every other week, so I'm doing one day per week at the internship only on the weeks I don't have normal clinical. The requirement for the course credit is that we do 54 hours of hands on time, but with the department director's consent, we can do more. It's unpaid.

 I had my first day there this past Monday. What a blast. I was there for about 8 hours, and had about that many patients. I was working directly with an ER nurse that is a graduate of my program. I got to see a dressing type I hadn't done before on a finger wound, do lots of glucoscans, discontinue IV's, do assessments on a wide variety of patients, lots of urinalysis, talk with someone who had just tried to commit suicide, prime IV lines (we are not allowed to actually *give* any medications at the internship), do patient education.

I left really excited about becoming a nurse, and hopeful that maybe at some point I could become an ED nurse. It think the variety is really the excitement for me. And the faster pace. On the med surg floor, it can sometimes feel like babysitting. Morning assessment, morning meds, hygiene care, morning treatments, nursing interventions, noon meds, more hygiene care. Some people really like it because it's a more wholistic experience with the patient. At this point in my student life though it feels really good to just be exposed to *a lot* of different situations, even if I don't get the same depth I would if I were following the same 3 patients all day.

I'm sad I won't be going back for another week and a half; I've got a lot of stuff to do in the mean time. Had a quiz today, an exam is tomorrow in my neuro class, we're covering IV push meds in lab on Friday, and I'm back at normal clinical for two days in a row at the beginning of next week. So I'll stay busy. But I'm really excited about going back to intern again!