Some things can’t be taught: My NYU externship

by Jennifer Sisco

I think at some point along the way we have all questioned (perhaps while performing your 12th bed bath of the semester) if being a nurse is really for me. We long to know what it is really like. We know that there is more to the job than cleaning up the patients and bringing them their medications but we have little chance to experience it within the academic setting. Well my friends you will have no idea what the truth of the nursing profession is until you begin senior residency; unless you choose to apply for a nurse externship. These programs which are offered by a limited number of hospitals in our area allow nursing students between their junior and senior years to be paid to work alongside an RN and learn what it is really like to work as a nurse. This experience was invaluable to my clinical skills which I have always felt were lacking just due to lack of exposure and practice.

In school our clinical experience is limited, we have one patient, we are not there for a whole shift, and never really follow through with any of our interventions. I applied to a number of externship programs and ended up at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City in the Hematology/Oncology unit. During my externship I honed my assessment skills, learned how to more accurately prioritize problems as well as how to better manage my time. By the end of my externship I was exposed to a number of tasks such as sterile dressing changes, tube and drain care, phlebotomy, complicated medication calculations, sample collection and a number of very interesting bedside procedures.

There are also other elements that made this experience so worthwhile. Working with the nurses and being part of the team that pulls together to get things done. While nursing is very autonomous there is also a sense of camaraderie that school can never teach you. During my externship the hospital saw its first earthquake and its first full evacuation for Hurricane Irene. The words “that is not my job” will never be spoken during times of crisis. We band together and do what we must to get things done. Leave your ego at the door and help out!

The one thing that no one can ever teach is what it is like to lose a patient. I am sure that each person will experience this differently shaded by your emotional state and past experiences. No one can teach you what to say to a family when all medical efforts have been exhausted as you sit with them and help them to understand. No one knows how they will feel when they check for a pulse and find none, when you know the patient has lost the battle and is gone. But on the opposite side of that coin, there is joy, when someone turns around unexpectedly, when a patient wins the fight.

This isn’t just a career; it’s a calling, just like they say in our classes, to be part of the human fight for life. To be a person of compassion and intelligence that is a nurse. To be a team player and a perfectionist that is a nurse. So while I gave up my summer I gained the knowledge that I am on the right path and that this job, profession, calling is for me.