May 11 2009
Important things learned during internships
Congrats to those of you interns out there who have finished up your internship in the past few weeks. My friend MaryAnn posted a list on her blog (which is private) about the important things she learned during her internship. I loved them and wanted to share. With her permission of course! I did some slight editing to protect patient’s names, just to be safe. Here it is!
Important things I learned from my internship:
1. No matter how much you try and prep a kid using soft language, a nurse may still come in and say “when they cut you open” and ruin the last 30 minutes you just spent with that 9 year old kid trying to make him less anxious about his appendectomy surgery.
2. Always try different means of distraction, you’ll never know what will actually distract a child.
3. It’s completely appropriate for a kid to cry when they are getting stuck by needles, especially if this is the 5th time they are trying to insert an IV.
4. PRIORITIZE! As much as I want to get to every kid and family that day, they’re many days when you are just not going to get to everyone.
5. No matter how mich I care…..my favorite kid will still go into brain surgery at 2pm April 24th, 2009 (my last day) and I will not know the outcome for him. But I will still pray!
5. Being a Child Life Specialist is completely rewarding and something I really want to do for my career!
If you’ve recently finished your internship, what are 5 things you learned? I would love to post a few.
Also, just a reminder, the Child Life Council’s Annual Conference on Professional Issues will be held May 21-24 at the Westin Boston Waterfront. If you would like more information you can go to the event group on facebook which is located here. I will not be attending this year but if you are attending it would be great to hear updates while the conference is going on. My contact information can be found to the left, in the About section. Thanks in advance!
