At the onset, I thought interning at a hospital would be insipid, but this experience proved me mistaken. Since infancy, my dream job has always deemed to be medically inclined. 
I went through my internship program at Deda hospital, Abuja, a private hospital with a 4.5 star rating that offers a wide range variety of medical specialty services, has high technological advancement and innovation as well as remarkable business ethics standards. My mother selected this hospital with help from another parent. I was introduced as an intern to the the hospital on Monday 8th July, 2024, but commenced my learning experience on the 10th of July, 2024 at 8:34 am.
There wasn’t really a rigid pattern for my work as I alternated among the different departments. A brief rundown of my role as an intern was conducting research to become proficient in basic medical skills,taking records of necessary details in appropriate record booklets or forms, equipping medical personnel with maximum assistance, engaging patients when required and offering knowledge and skills where obligatory and a few note worthy others.
The disparate units I was taken through include: the test laboratory, the pharmacy, the consulting department, vitals, the phlebotomy, the nursing unit and the most exhilarating, radiology. At the test laboratory, I couldn’t do much because it deals with examining and analyzing blood and other specimen to detect acquired illnesses, so my job was just to take records and carry out research for my own understanding.
Concerning the pharmacy, it was more of a learning process than it was practical; I learnt the classification of drugs, vaccines, injections, their routes, net content and for some, their dischargement.
My secondary best was the consulting unit; I got to assume the role of a doctor: asking follow up questions to patients, learn about far-reaching diseases and people’s back stories to those diseases and proffering requisite solutions and referment.
The vitals and nursing unit are akin; I checked vitals (weight, pulse, blood pressure, heart rate/beat) of both in-patient and out-patient and how to administer care and medication promptly. The phlebotomy is attached to the test laboratory, where I learnt and practiced (not on a person) the procedure of taking blood for further testing. The pre-eminent department of all was Radiology and was saved for my last day. Although I couldn’t do anything due to the complexity of the machines, I was able to grasp a lot and was really fascinated by the devices and their spectacular proficiency.
The climax of my internship experience had to be the fact my span of knowledge was widened within a short period and the program took time off my hands for me to get productive. Another highlight was being able to say I contributed to the saving of lives and improving of lives efficiency, no matter how little.
Of recent, I have been having contemplations about whether or not I should career into the medical industry or not due to factors like time constraints, stress and others, but after this experience, I realized it’ll be efficacious.
If I were to restart my internship,something I would do differently is to have an open mindset which would help build my attitude towards learning and longing to explore way more.
I would really love to thank my mum for my experience of internship, because I was really pressing on having my internship somewhere fun, but she informed me on the the importance of the program being in line with my career interest and I already see the significance playing out. My internship concluded on Friday 26th July, 2024.
Naoma Seyonga AUDU
Class of 2027