Internship Photo Essay....

It is Leticia’s first time giving birth. She’s shaking. She’s nervous. Morning sickness, cramps, mood swings, weird cravings, and a mortal fear of her body not being the same again. At the age of 17 she already had to go through all of this. Now all that matters is that little being that is inside of her and it’s about to come out. Leticia’s mother brought her from Mexico right after she found out her daughter was pregnant. She was certainly thinking of a better place for her to live. A better place for her granddaughter to grow up. Seven months have passed now since everyone else found out. And now they are here at the hospital waiting for the receptionist to tell her which way to go. The labor and delivery department is waiting for her now. And Leticia can’t wait to meet her new baby. Lots of stories like this one come alive in a hospital. Most of them full of hope, but there are sad stories too.

Two sisters are about to loose their mom. They’ve been sitting right next to her all night. She hasn’t talk in two days. That heart attack brought her down. And they can not believe it. The strongest woman they now, the one that raised both of them is now dying before them in the hospital bed. The two sisters don’t know what to do they can’t picture their lives without their mama. Yesterday they heard one of the nurses say that they didn’t have much hope on Mrs. Close recuperation. Now all there is left to do, is to wait in that big lobby and hope for the best. And pray for the best. Maybe go to that small chapel inside the hospital and ask God for a little bit more of time with their mom.

Kathy is 79 years old. I’ve heard that when you turn her age is hard to move, to breath and sometimes is hard to live. Last night She had a little problem, she fell of her bed. She lives at her son’s house. Her granddaughter lives with her son also. She’s a not really well mannered teenager. She listens to her music in a really high volume. One of the reasons they couldn’t hear poor Kathy when she fell of bed last night. She was screaming for about 45 minutes. Until her son heard something and came to help her. If it wasn’t because she broke her leg they’ve would of probably put her back to bed, but they had to take her to the hospital. When they got there the nurses where nice. Dr. Collins took care of her leg and she was ready to go home, at least that’s what Dr. Collins thought. Because she didn’t want to go home. She wanted to stay around people that cared for her. At home there is none.

Little Nathan has spend most part of his life in a hospital. The Doctors said that Leukemia was bringing him down, and he wouldn’t last long. Nathan is tired now. He doesn’t have any energy left, he’s scared. He’s Elementary school friends are coming to visit today, but he’s afraid he wont be able to be with them for a long time, he wants to sleep a little bit more before the doctors come in again. His mom has stayed in the hospital lobby many times. Worried about what’s going to happen to her little one. Another chemotherapy session, another day. She’s tired of this but keeps on going for him. Even if that means spending more time at the hospitals chapel than her own house.

It takes only 15 minutes sitting in a hospital lobby to listen to how hard life can get when a health problem is part of it. People that stays all night waiting to hear how that surgery went, or that ran to the hospital because they had a “false alarm” with the new baby. A really sad face comes through that door, but then a happy one walks through the other one. A lot of feelings and emotions throughout this lobby. Happiness, anguish, sadness, fear of what might happen. That’s life in a hospital, everyone tries to trust that they’re in the right place with the right people, and they’ll help them fix the problem. A lot of different things go on in this lobby. Even lunch for an intern. Going through her own hospital story too.

2. How could immersion impact your experience as a student?

I think this will impact my life as a student a lot. The truth is I'm having a really bad experience at my internship. I'm doing my internship at Scripps, and at first I thought that would be good, it was a hospital right were I wanted. But I didn't expect I would end up in the cafeteria area, and with a dietitian as my mentor. I'm not wearing scrubs and taking care of sick people or newborn babies. I'm going to that little room in the back of the kitchen (with a hairnet on) and I'm not doing much. Not that I don't want to I just don't know what to do. My mentor is a really busy person so she's expecting me to do things that I don't know how to do and I can't do them. And of course She's not there to "mentor me" and explain me how to do them. I'm not working with her, or learning from her. I'm just doing EXTRA work in the area. How is this impacting my student life? I like school. I appreciate my teachers. I like people telling me WHAT I'm supposed to do and HOW to do it. So I'm happy to be here. Be back. During immersion, I'll I could think of was coming back and having a normal student life. no more nasty work. Boring useless work. seriously any of our projects can help the world better than internship. This is how internship impact me as a student, I want to be a student not an employee.

My PreDiCtiOnS 4 IntErNsHIp ImMeRSioN....

1. What are you most excited about in regards to your immersion experience? I am really exited about the idea of being in a hospital environment. Why do you feel this way? Because i think i want to be a nurse when i grow up. So being around doctors and nurses is really interesting. Even though I'm in the nutrition department and I'm not dealing with blood, I feel like this will be a good learning experience. And by the time I'm done I'll know if this is really the type of environment I want to work on.
2. What are you most concerned about (what causes the most stress) regarding immersion? The idea of not having enough things to do. People here are really organized, therefore they don't need help. They have everything under control. So this can be kind of stressful, or boring I should say. Also the project. I don't have one yet that is really stressful, they don't need major changes here so I don't know what I'll do about my project.Why do you feel this way? People here is really busy to have an intern, that's why I feel this way.

How do I prove this? I wrote my blog during internship, that's how busy I am.