This summer was filled with things that I would have never pictured myself doing when I first graduated high school and decided on my career path of nursing. As my junior year at Walsh University swiftly came to an end, I was excited, nervous, overjoyed, and feeling so very blessed. The first part of my summer was spent in Moshi, Tanzania working in hospitals along side of the Tanzanian nursing students and learning about their culture and healthcare systems. This trip was amazing and so very eye opening, but what I am really here to tell you about is my summer externship experience.

Upon returning from Tanzania, I had a short visit home to Boothbay to catch up with my friends and, of course, spend time with my family. Then it was back to Cleveland, Ohio where I would be working for 10 weeks at The Cleveland Clinic Main Campus as a nurse associate extern. This program, which I applied to in mid-November 2017, is offered to upcoming seniors in an accredited BSN program. This is a program that is unique to the Cleveland Clinic because it is a paid externship where I not only got to work on an inpatient floor, but I also got to attend classes that were taught by the nursing education department. In these classes I learned about many things that may have been covered in nursing school, but not to the extent that we needed to due to limited time, for example EKG interpretations. The other component of this program is that I was able to shadow on three units that I did not get to see a lot of during nursing school. I was able to shadow in the operating room, the emergency department, and the labor and delivery unit.

The program is an opportunity to work along side of a registered nurse who supervises and guides you to build your own clinical skills, critical thinking, time management and communication between physicians, other RNs and anyone else that is involved in the care of your patients. This experience is what really helped me to determine what specialty of nursing I wanted to go into after I graduate. When applying for the program there were many specialty floors to choose from, such as the heart and lung transplant floor, the CV ICU, MICU, medical surgical floors, and the operating room. What I ended up deciding to apply for was the general pediatrics floor (M33). After this summer, I now know that I made the right decision. This summer was a whirlwind of knowledge and experiences. From doctors pulling me into rooms to teach me and let me experience something that I had never seen or done before, listening and participating in handoff report, to just sitting with kids as their parents have other commitments that can not go by the wayside even though their child is sick and in the hospital.

This summer I was able to learn from some of the best nurses I have ever worked with in all my experiences. I am also thankful for the 30 other nursing students I was able to attended classes with all summer; it is nice to have someone that can relate to you on your level and knows how hard nursing school can be at times.

The confidence, knowledge, and leadership skills that I gained from this is, without a doubt, irreplaceable.