Ever since the end of her sophomore year, Junior Olivia Killngbeck has interned at Johnson Memorial Hospital in the ER department once a week for four-hours shifts.
“There’s an online application you’ve to go through and once they see your application there are two interviews with the application and the interview process takes about two-three weeks.” Killingbeck said. “They teach you all about the position and make sure you’re still interested in it, once you get the position they give you a day and they show you what everything is and how to do everything.”
Driven by her passion in the health field, she is determined to become a nurse practitioner. Interning provides invaluable experience that will be a significant asset in college.
I’m doing it for experience so I can learn what it is like to work in a hospital,” Killingbeck said. I get to meet a lot of new people, so I get to meet different doctors and nurses, and they get to tell me all their personal experiences. I get to hear and decide on what I want to do in the future. Yesterday, I got to go in with a bunch of patients and got to see how they get treated and evaluated.”
She encounters some challenges in the hospital, as she is still acclimating to the environment.
“A lot of times I don’t know for sure of what’s going on so sometimes I feel undereducated or lost. Since I’m just an intern I can’t do anything hands-on with patients and doctors,” Killingbeck said. “A lot of times I have to advocate for myself to get to see and do different things since I’m basically the youngest person in the building.”
One of the challenges Killingbeck faces is the work environment itself, which requires the need to always be alert, ready to act and filled with many tasks to accomplish.
“It’s a very busy environment,” Killingbeck said. “I volunteer in the ER, so there are always lots of people coming and going and several other things. A lot of times I help clean out rooms, relocate patients wherever I can and check up on the trauma patients to just see what’s going on.”
The internship has had an impact on Killingbeck, helping her get answers about what she wants from her future.
“I would say it has had a big impact in my life.” Killingbeck said. “I’ve got to learn a lot, and it’s helped me decide what path I want to take in my future. For example, I can decide if I want to be a nurse or a doctor or something else. It gives me real hands-on experience with the world and some of the realities of the awful medical things that can happen to people like crashes or different sicknesses.”
