My Experience So Far

Internship has been extremely fun so far. Everybody in the office is really connected and the environment is very pleasant. This week at Paradise Valley Hospital was Healthcare Worker Week, so there has been a lot of fun activities going on. On Monday, there was a movie day, so during my break I went to watch the movie for a little and enjoyed some popcorn and some other snacks. Tuesday, they served free breakfast and Wednesday they served free lunch. Today was the Cupcake Cookoff. My department, Infection Control, won 2nd place with out pina colada cupcakes. During these fun and games, we still managed to get some work done.

My mentor is always putting together reports, so on my down time, I mostly alphabetized the Influenza paperwork so that if they need to find a specific one, it would be easy to find. I was also able to socialized with the other people in my office. Susan, Jose, Sherilyn, and Kimberly, who works in Patient Experience, have a great sense of humor and they always seem to have very entertaining stories. It's never boring when they are having a conversation because their stories are gauranteed to make you laugh.

Today I got to also use my observation skills in the work place. I went around to the different sections of the hospital and observed which rooms had isolation signs on it and I watched to see if the nurses follow the right procedures. I was also able to relate my knowledge of how diseases spread through cells to what my mentor shared with me.

My mentor told me today that my project will be to improve hand hygene for the patients. The hospital has a really good hand hygene program for the nurses and doctors, so my job will be to improve it for the patients.