Day 1: September 17, 2014

Well, today was my first day as an intern at the hospital! Since this is my first time documenting this internship I guess I'll start at the very beginning. I worked from 8:30 to 2:15 because today was orientation day, so the hours were a bit shorter than the usual shift which will be from 8:00 to 2:00. I got there a bit before 8:30 and went downstairs to the conference center. The conference center was where we watched all of the presentations. First we had a presentation about Service Excellence and how we should treat everyone with respect. The staff at the hospital seem really nice so far, it seemed like everyone we passed by in the hallway were trying to persuade us to intern in their own departments! We saw a man whose job was to transport patients on gurneys and he told us how much he loved it and how he wanted us to shadow him! And while we were in pediatrics, one nurse was thanking another nurse for bringing in cupcakes, which was nice. After that presentation we had a presentation on Infection Prevention And Control, which got all of us feeling kind of paranoid, but it was important information to know, anyway. The presenter shined a blacklight on our hands and we could see the microorganisms from everywhere we'd touched, which REALLY freaked us out. After that we had a presentation about the medical library and databases. The presenter showed us a website where you can watch hour-long surgeries online for free which I thought was cool! Hopefully I don't spend all my time watching these videos!! Next we had a presentation on fire safety and security, which was important because if there is a security issue, we need to know what to do. Then, we got our photos taken for our badges, and went on a tour of the hospital. We saw many different departments such as pediatric, imaging, and neonatology, which were all interesting, but sadly we didn't see cardiology. Then we had lunch in the cafeteria in the basement, picked up our ID badges, did some paperwork stuff outside on the terrace, and went home!

I'm really excited to meet my mentor next week and start working in the cardiology department!