Recently, we spoke with Sarah Nickles, a sophomore at Emmanuel College who has been taking the initiative to reach her goals! She has been interning at Boston Children’s Hospital in the Trauma Program and Injury Prevention Department and she was recently given the opportunity to scrub into a surgery! Read on to hear more!
Her Campus Emmanuel: Hey Sarah! Thank you for doing this, I really appreciate it! First off, why don’t you tell us a little about yourself? Where are you from, some stuff about you.
Sarah Nickles: Okay… I’m Sarah, as you know, I am from Northern Virginia, so about thirty-five minutes outside of Washington D.C. I am studying Neuroscience with a minor in Biology. Fun fact about me is that I have a twin brother and he’s my best friend.
HCE: Does your twin brother go to Emmanuel or a different school?
SN: He goes to Virginia Tech, and is studying Aerospace Engineering, so he is the smarter twin!
HCE: I’m sure that’s not true! Now for the second question, what type of activities do you do on campus?
SN: I am an Admission Ambassador and I give tours on Mondays and info sessions on the weekends. I am involved in the Student Government Association as the Executive Secretary and I chair the committee for new clubs on campus. So Her Campus is one we founded last year!
HCE: So you said your major was Neuroscience with a minor in Biology, but what is your reasoning behind selecting that major?
SN: Well I actually came into Emmanuel wanting to study Clinical Psychology because I worked at a clinical psych place for a long time and was a clinical coordinator there. I did a lot of booking appointments and was the one that helped refer them to a specific doctor that they needed if they were receiving psychoeducational testing or cognitive behavior testing. I paired them with therapists and things like that. I really liked the clinical side of that and then I started delving more into the BioPsych end, and I was like “Oh my gosh! Science behind psychology is so cool!” So that’s when I jumped into Neuroscience. I did want to be a surgeon my whole life, but at the time Clinical Psych made more sense for me. Then when I started really diving into the sciences I learned this is actually something I love and it would be stupid not to jump into that-so I did it!
HCE: What made you interested in an internship at Boston Children’s Hospital and why the particular department?
SN: So, it was always a dream of mine to work at Boston Children’s Hospital. When I applied to Emmanuel I did not put two and two together that Boston Children’s Hospital was in Boston! So when I was on the tour they did the spiel about how Boston Children’s was nearby and opportunity was on your doorstep and I choked up. I was like “Oh my Gosh! That’s where I need to be!” So it has always been this goal of mine, since I was really little, but then it kind of started to come into fruition and once I decided to come to Emmanuel because I was like, “how can I not utilize something so close by?” Then I was surfing Hire Saints one day, looking for internships, and there was one that was Trauma Program and Injury Prevention. Aside from Neuroscience, emergency medicine and trauma has always interested me, so I was like “Hey, if this is going to be my way in, this will be my way in.” So I applied. They generally only took juniors and seniors, but I felt I was close enough. I wasn’t really expecting a lot because they were looking for that age group but I did it anyways and they hired me! I didn’t know they would bend the rules!
HCE: Was it a hard application process?
SN: It was resume, cover letter and they got in contact with you. Then it was an initial interview with two of my program supervisors and then if they liked that interview I had to do a second interview. That interview was with one of the heads of the trauma department.
HCE: What is a normal day at your internship like?
SN: So it’s kind of a crap shoot! Part of the internship is an Injury Prevention store which I have to work at and sell injury prevention things, so helmets, cabinet locks, toilet seat locks, etc. Some days I am in the office I do some administrative work likepatient profiles, filling out their information. And then some days I am working in inpatient which involves meeting patients, seeing if they need things like car seats, which is a huge part of our department. Boston Children’s Hospital has a fantastic grant from Buckle Up for Life and they grant the hospital a ton of car seats. because part of being discharged from the hospital is making sure the child has a carseat. Another part of the job is to go to case reviews. There are case reviews every month, which involve myself, other people in my department,trauma surgeon Dr. Mooney, and some of his residents and PA’s. We sit and talk about some cases that are a little difficult. There is also the surgery observations.
HCE: Right! Please tell us a little bit more about scrubbing into a surgery! That is just amazing and I can not believe you could do that!
SN: When I applied into this program, scrubbing into surgeries and case reviews were not in the job description, but myself and the other interns said that this is what we wanted. Children’s is very good at accommodating for their interns in the sense that our badges get us anywhere. If you have a badge, take advantage. Look at the different departments, meet people, network, things like that! Dr. Mooney, the trauma surgeon, works really close with us in the department, so I decided that if I want to get into a surgery, let’s make this happen. When I talked to the supervisors they said that not many people follow up with this but they said I could contact Dr. Mooney and see what would happen. So I was like okay! Give me an inch and I’ll take a mile! I talked to him about it and I was able to scrub into my first surgery about a month ago and I will be scrubbing into a surgery on Tuesday. So, the day of the surgery, I got here put on all my scrubbies and then the hairnet, gloves, mask, all that. I only observed one surgery at that time because Dr. Mooney has had people pass out at the sight of blood previously in his OR and since that is really bad he put me through an easy one. Dr. Mooney was walking through a lot of it with his residents and turn and will dumb it down a bit for me. Or sometimes when he is quizzing his residents, he asks “Why are we doing this?” and then he’ll look at me and whisper why they were doing it. It’s a super cool, educational, super hands on experience.
HCE: Thank you! That sounds like an amazing experience! Now what is one thing that you love about the internship?
SN: I really love the hospital, everyone is so nice here. They want you to utilize the privilege of working here. So there is a Critical Care Transport Team that’s at this hospital. Boston Children’s Hospital is one of the only hospitals in the country that has a critical transport rig. It is a huge ambulance which is one of the most beautiful ambulances you have ever seen. It is better than our dorm rooms and that is how they transfer patients from one hospital to another if they are in ICU for example. All of the EMT’s in the rig are certified to administer any medicine that a doctor could administer in an ICU, so it’s a very cool situation. I went down there out of curiosity and asked if someone could show me the rig, and someone took me down there and helped me out. They also said that if I ever wanted to go into their rig, just let them know! So I am planning on going on that rig soon. It’s stuff like that. Dr. Mooney said, “You’re working here now. If you want to come see me do surgeries, come watch me do surgeries.” You just need to say what you want to do here and they will help you out with that. That is definitely my favorite part.
Above Image (left to right): Sarah, Attending, Haley McEvoy (also a student at Emmanuel College), Barabra (alumni of Emmanuel), Deidre, Dr. David Mooney, Maria
HCE: For those who are trying to work in the medical/research world, what is some advice you would like to give them?
SN: A couple of things I would like everyone to know: When you are looking for an internship at a hospital, don’t not apply for something just because it’s not necessarily the field you want. Trauma was in the back of my mind, but when I looked at this program it was mostly injury prevention. Recently the whole team went to a homeless shelter and child-proofed the entire place. I never thought of that as something I would do when working for a hospital! So when you are looking for an internship, don’t be afraid to apply somewhere that may be out of your realm of expertise! I learned a lot from this, such as how I want to be a PA instead of a surgeon! Another thing, I highly suggest people trying the clinical side and trying the research side. I have tried the clinical side, and not the research side, but I’m interested in what I will be like in that setting. Some people cannot handle the clinical side because it can be really hard seeing some of the really sick kids. These people get into research and save lives by making medicine. So I encourage people to dabble in both sides.
HCE: Final thing, are there any additional comments you would like to make?
SN: Going to the homeless shelter was so cool because all these professionals went to this homeless shelter on our own time and childproofed it. Hospitals don’t need to do that, at all. That’s just something so special to Children’s. We took time out of our day to childproof the shelter. The amount of patient advocacy here is really cool, too. This one time we were in an apartment and there was a little boy running around, and he was like “What are you doing? Why are you here?” and Dr. Mooney looked at him and said, “I don’t want to see your beautiful face in my ER.” And it was just the coolest thing to hear that because at a lot of hospitals that child could be just another number, just another patient, just another project, but here they are really focusing until every child is well. I really appreciate that and I love that I can be part of a team that is passionate about really making that happen. They really are innovating care! I just really love it here.
Thank you so much for sitting down and talking with us Sarah! We can tell that you are doing many great things through your internship and can not wait to see what else you will do!