Carysse Norris – Medical Internship

Hello, my name is Carysse Norris.  For the second semester of my senior year, I have had the opportunity to intern at Tel Hai Retirement Community in the Health Care branch.  The health care branch consists of two floors, Meadow Brooke and Meadow Ridge.  Each floor contains dining rooms and three wings.  On both floors, two wings are for permanent residents, while the remaining wing is for rehab residents.  Rehab residents may include those recovering from surgery, a stroke, or other medical complications. Since I am not a certified health care provider, I mostly shadow different health care professions at Tel Hai, including Hospitality Aides, Nursing Assistants, Licensed Practical Nurses, and Registered Nurses.

The first two weeks of my internship included shadowing Hospitality Aides.  Hospitality Aide’s responsibilities include cleaning out residents’ rooms, distributing water bottles to residents, feeding residents their meals, and making residents’ beds. While shadowing Hospitality Aides, I was often able to assist the Aids with transporting residents to and from meals, distributing fresh water to residents, and making beds within residents’ rooms.  Following the first two weeks, I then shadowed Nursing Assistants for a little over a month.  Although I was strictly shadowing Nursing Assistants, I learned just how critical Nursing Assistants are in a nursing home facility.  Some Nursing Assistant responsibilities that I was able to observe include bathing residents, moving residents into and out of bed, changing residents’ sanitary pads, feeding residents, charting residents’ food and drink consumption, as well as providing emotional support for the residents.  After the time I spent shadowing Nursing Assistants, I moved on to shadow Licensed Practical Nurses and Registered Nurses. In the nursing home facility, the responsibilities of a Licensed Practical Nurse and a Registered Nurse are just about the same, however, Registered Nurses have a little more liability.  Some of the jobs of both LPNs and RNs typically include are performing skin assessments on the residents, distributing medications to the residents, taking the vital signs of each resident, providing treatment on residents’ wounds, and documenting information about the residents throughout the day.

Although this internship is mostly hands-off shadowing, it does involve challenges.  Working with residents who suffer from dementia can bring about difficulties.  However, this has helped build my patience as well as my ability to work with others despite the inability to clearly communicate.  Often, certain objects, noises, motions, body language, sounds, or even feelings can trigger different behaviors in those who suffer from dementia.  Therefore, finding the source of the behavior can sometimes be a challenge.  Moreover, being in a nursing home in many cases means that a resident may be reaching the end of their lives, thus in some cases, the residents are suffering as they approach death.  Emotionally, seeing people in this stage has challenged me and helped me to grow.  Yet, the health care staff ensures that this stage of life for the residents is the most painless and the best that it possibly can be.

Consequently, in the short time I have shadowed at Tel Hai Retirement Community, I have expanded my knowledge of nursing as well as my passion for it.  The opportunity to work with every level of health care within a facility allowed me to gain respect and recognize the importance of each level of care.  With the goal of eventually having an occupation that continually does for others, this internship assured me that my plan of pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Nursing is the right path for me.  The health care staff at Tel Hai has allowed me to gain not only knowledge about the job of nursing, but above and beyond that.  Specifically, the importance of putting things in perspective is essential in health care.  The ability to recognize the way that patients view their health care providers can spark patience and passion within that provider.  Moreover, although efficiency is important, the quality of care should remain the number one priority, which is demonstrated by the health care staff at Tel Hai every day.