Sophie Thacker, senior, is carrying out an executive internship this school year. This internship is based through Atrium Health where she is given the opportunity to rotate through multiple locations of the hospital throughout the year. Through these experiences, Sophie is able to participate in several different real-world activities. Some of these include attending meetings, revising A3s (a problem-solving method), editing power points utilized in nursing classes, and accompanying workers around the hospital. Sophie said, ¨The meetings included nurse tech and nurse residency education, but some also consisted of head nurses from different departments throughout the hospital.¨
Sophie became interested in the concept of an internship due to her friends who were seniors last year thatparticipated in the executive internship program. She said, ¨They told me that having an internship was a great opportunity, but also simply something fun to add to your school schedule.¨ She wanted to be a part of this internship because it gives her multiple opportunities to experience different areas throughout the medical field all pertaining to leadership. Through wanting to be a part of an internship similar to the ones that her friends had, she reached out to Holly Sutton who then set her up with the internship that she was interested in.
Sophie travels to her internship every school day of the week. She stated, “I leave at the end of 3rd period and come back for 7th period”. This indicates that she leaves the school building at around 10:40 in the morning and is back on school property by 2:15. Sophie also mentioned that her internship is very beneficial to her saying, “I think it will definitely help me in the future due to the variety of experience I will obtain throughout the year and will help me know of jobs I might be interested in later in life”. Through this, she expressed that her internship is also very beneficial to help her understand what the workers there do and what the pros and cons are working there. For example, she might think that what the employees there are doing might be interesting or might suit her in the future. On the other hand though, she could also find something that she doesn’t enjoy that she might not want to pursue in the future.
Her internship is also very popular throughout the school. She said that “several of my friends also do internships through Atrium Health.” Although many of her friends have internships based at Atrium Health, all of them are slightly different. Sophie is also the only student to ever have the specific internship that she has. Some of her friends might follow employees around the building and see what they participate in while Sophie is doing something else like attending a meeting. Her internship is also very enjoyable. She said, “I enjoy it thoroughly because it allows me to see into the real world side of different medical jobs available.¨ This helps her understand what she would do in the future if she were to get one of the jobs there that is available