Sarah Hecker

Dr. Lidstone/Dr. Kaninjing

Internship Reflection Paper

March 26, 2019

Introduction:

I am Sarah Hecker, and I interned this semester at Roswell Urgent Care. Doctor Judith

Dennis is the owner and main doctor on staff at Roswell Urgent Care. Dr. Dennis graduated

from Duke University with a Bachelor of Science. She then went on to earn her Doctorate

of Medicine at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA. She began this urgent care

facility in 2005. She is accompanied by part time physician Andrea Kovacic, physician assistant

Scott Hearn, and physician assistant Stacey Paulin. Kovacic, Hearn, and Paulin rotate days

worked when Dr. Dennis is not on site. Usually only one of them is present. We also have

medics and nurses on site who accompany the other staff every day. We have Mary Salib, Megan

Horn, Jamyle Long, and John Hock. These are the people that I shadow when I am present at the

urgent care. Roswell Urgent Care also has two front desk staff, as well as sisters, Amber and

Kelcey. Roswell Urgent Care serves a variety of the population. We see the entire spectrum from

wealthy individuals, Medicare, low income patients, to those uninsured. Everyone on site aims

towards giving patients the best care they could possibly receive, while keeping costs as low as

possible. The urgent care takes online appointments, but mostly takes walk in patients. Roswell

Urgent Care is located between multiple high schools and places of employment, so the main

population is high school students or working adults. Roswell Urgent Care will see anyone two
and up, unless they feel that the visit is too urgent, in which they will be sent to the emergency

room or referred elsewhere.

Description of Experience:

My role here is that I am a back office medical intern. That means that I do not handle

front desk work but go back and work with the patients. As an intern I take patient’s vitals, stand

in the room while patients are getting triaged, get supplies for the nurses or doctors ready, and

run different tests. Tests that I run daily are urine analysis, pregnancy tests, strep tests, and flu

tests. I can confidently run those tests on my own after having interned at this site, which is a

great stride towards a career in the medical field. The most exciting part of this internship would

be getting to watch during trauma visits. Trauma patients come in for a lot of different reasons,

but mostly all of them need stitches or packing in some type of way. I loved watching the doctors

close up those type of wounds and see how they would treat different patients that come through.

My absolute favorite thing to watch was packing. I loved seeing how much packing was needed

for puncture wounds, because often you could not tell how deep the injuries were without

starting to pack it and see how much material was used. We have seen some pretty severe

injuries, which I found the most interesting to view while interning. The part of the internship

that I found the most challenging would be when patients came in with skin problems. I know

that nursing and dermatology are not career paths for me, because I could not stomach different

skin conditions or problems. We would have patients with cysts that needed draining come in

fairly often, and I could not sit in when that procedure was being performed because I feared that

I might get nauseous. I also did not like sitting through shingles or skin infection type patients.

The only other aspect I found challenging to sit through was when patients were getting their
ears drained. The nurse uses a syringe to push out anything that may be in the ear, and it is often

a lot more gunk then you would expect, which does not sit well with me.

Perception and Evaluation of the Internship:

This internship far exceeded my personal expectations. I went into the internship figuring

that I would be placed behind a desk and given busy work or paperwork to complete for the

office. Instead, on the first day they threw me right into how they do things, and I shadowed the

nurse on site through every patient that came through. I was able to listen to all the symptom’s

patients feel, and work through every step of the patient visit until the patient is discharged. This

internship has helped me learn about different illnesses and how to spot them, as well as how to

run common tests. I started right when flu and strep season was booming, so I ran those two tests

multiple times a day. I was also able to assist during x-rays. It isn’t common for urgent care

facilities to have an x-ray room. I learned how to adjust the x-ray machines, as well as get the

films developed in the black room. Another unusual thing that this urgent care had was a trauma

area. Having the trauma area on site allowed me to view how stitches and packing were

performed, as well as how to properly wash and treat wounds that patients had. The organization

was more than willing to take my thoughts and ideas. They were very well run as far as every

day tasks. When I suggested a fundraiser and they immediately allowed and supported me on the

project. My site supervisor provided me all the guidelines and materials and let me have my

professional freedom when it came to how I wanted to run it. They ended up loving the

fundraiser, and plan to continue it in years to come. Candace Smith, my internship site

supervisor, has been more than helpful with my time here interning. She has allowed me

flexibility with when I get my hours, which has helped a lot recently with this unexpecting

passing of my grandmother. She also allowed me to access the Roswell Urgent Care social
medias to promote my internship project when that was going on. My experience could have

been improved by allowing me to also learn about the front desk work and filing, since those are

good skills to have no matter what job I pursue. Insurance is very confusing to me, so if I were

able to shadow the front desk, I feel that I could have picked up on it more. I would absolutely

recommend this site to future interns. They accept a lot of interns, even high school interns, so it

was easy to obtain. They knew exactly what to do when interns are on site. The staff was great to

work with and have taught me so much in my time here. Everyone has made me feel so

welcomed and wanted, and they were more than willing to teach someone who knew nothing

about medicine or nursing. The only reason that I would not consider a career setting like this

facility would be because I cannot stomach the type of things that come through. Since it is a

general facility, you see almost anything. I also knew that I wanted to pursue radiation therapy,

and knew that even before this internship, so I haven’t ever considered this as a long-term

employment opportunity.

Internship Preparedness:

I was not academically prepared for this placement, and I had to learn almost everything

on site. I was never taught how to run tests, when different tests would be needed, how to triage a

patient, or common medicines or illness present in the population. The areas where I felt the

most confident and comfortable would be when it came down to bed side manner and making the

patient feel comfortable. However, that is just from being social and learning compassion over

the years in everyday life. I wish that in public health there was a course in learning bed side

manner, because it’s extremely important and individuals tend to lack knowledge in that

department. I was the least prepared and confident in taking patients vitals or swabbing the nose

and throat for different tests. Those were extremely easy to learn and pick up on but going into
the internship I felt like I had no knowledge and was way behind everyone else in the facility.

The courses that were most relevant would be anatomy and physiology and medical terminology.

It is vital to know patients body parts and terms for different areas. All the staff on site uses the

professional terms, so if you do not have a background in those subjects you will have absolutely

no idea what they are referring to. I think what Georgia College can do to help students would be

to give students looking for internships some sort of direction such as broad places to look;

retirement homes, urgent cares, clinics, etc. I know that a lot of students felt pressure and like

they were scrambling to find out what would be considered a public health location and ended up

not being happy with their internship site. Another helpful thing would be to discuss in depth

specific careers you can get straight out of a bachelor’s degree in public health. I know that a lot

of us students don’t know what to do with our degree and are having to get other degrees in order

to find a good career. Some guidance would be great for future students. Even posting job

openings or letting students with a public health major know what is out there would be helpful. I

know that exercise science has a Facebook page where people post job openings from where

they work, or internship openings for students who are about to have to start looking for one.

Internship Performance:

New skills and knowledge that I have acquired through this internship would be a

thorough understanding on how to take patients vitals, blood pressure reading, taking tests and

reading the results, and bedside manner. These are something that I had no knowledge of going

into the internship. Honestly, I wasn’t wanting to do an internship to start, but after having

worked here for a few months I feel so much more prepared for a career in the health field. Yes, I

was satisfied when it came to my performance on assignments. I have always been good at

staying on top of things and time management. I do not procrastinate, because I don’t like to feel
the stress of having something due last minute without being able to put my best effort forward.

If I had to honestly rate the quality of my overall work, I would give myself the highest rating. I

knew that this internship would be a great professional reference moving forward, so I gave it

my all when completing a task required of me. I had a lot of heavy things happen this semester

aside from the internship, so when I was working it was a time that I could block everything else

out and just commit to my time while being at Roswell Urgent Care. A skill that I think I need to

sharpen would be learning to make small talk with patients. I will always have to do this no

matter where I am, and I always admired people who could make conversation with almost

anyone. It is something that I need to work on and putting myself in more situations where that is

necessary will help me develop my skills.

Personal/Professional Insights/Benefits:

This internship has impacted my career goals, because it reassured me that nursing or

something along the lines of that is not something that I want to pursue as a career. I enjoyed

working with x-rays the most in the urgent care, which ensued confidence that I would like a

career in radiation therapy since that is also working with large machinery while treating

patients. This internship has incredibly impacted my confidence. It reassured me that I’m

extremely personable, as patients have told me that I am one of their favorite employees. I also

have gained skills that I could use in future careers such as taking vitals, triaging, and taking

tests. This internship has taught me more in the few months being here than I have learned in the

classrooms my entire college career. I have had wonderful professors, but it is far easier to retain

information when applying it, than taking tests while overlapping classes. An insight that I have

gained is that a lot of individuals who aren’t in the health field have no knowledge of health-

related things. I think that to improve this and change this issue, we as health professionals need
to explain everything as if no one knows. I have seen a lot of nurses here tell patients what their

blood pressure is, but not explain if that is good or bad. Many patients don’t know that ideal

blood pressure is 120 over 80, so when telling them their blood pressure is 135 over 95, they

have no idea that it is high blood pressure on the spectrum. Giving patients small information

like this, but about every aspect of their treatment could help the population gain knowledge and

potentially prevent the reoccurrence or spreading or certain illnesses or diseases. A main concern

I have after viewing patients would just be the general lack of health education. In the career I

pursue I am going to work hard to give patients the entire background on what is going on with

them and all the information they need going forward.

Assessment:

Content from all 6 sections: 15/15

Mechanics: 5/5

Writing, quality of reasoning in responses: 5/5

Overall: 25/25