Editor's note: this is Part 3 of Carolyn Neugarten's story on Ridgefield High School Class of 2022 Internships. To take a look at Part 1, click here and Part 2 click here.
As internships come to a close and Ridgefield High School seniors anticipate graduation, five more seniors agreed to share their internship experience over the past month.
Kai Harris donated his internship time to caring for neglected animals at Rising Starr Horse Rescue in Wilton CT, a nonprofit which saves horses from across the country and sends them to better homes. One horse named Caspar, Kai explains, “came from somewhere in the South and is in horrible shape. It’s so skinny you can see all of its bones.” Caring for these horses is no easy task - sweeping the barn, mucking out the stalls and outdoor paddocks, filling up water containers and distributing hay, making breakfast and dinner for the horses, and grooming them too are all assignments on the daily agenda. Seeing these poorly treated animals and caring for them is grueling work for anyone, and though Kai is admittedly “wiped by the end of the day”, he modestly added that he has been “glad to have helped, even for only a month.” This internship has taught Kai about horses and their proper treatment, but he will also end his five-week journey with the benefit of making a significant impact on many of the horses’ lives.
Rachel Rudnicki’s easiest internship days are on Fridays when she is put on cookie cart duty - she and two other interns bake cookies to give to the nurses and staff throughout Danbury Hospital, as well as to the new moms with their little babies (Rachel’s self-proclaimed favorite part!). All other days, however, require extreme care and concentration as a hospital intern. Monday is transport day for Rachel, where she brings in-house patients from their rooms to different testing areas (such as areas for CT scans, or radiology) or from those areas back to their rooms. Tuesdays look slightly different - she is in the ASU (ambulatory surgical unit) pre-op, aiding with prepping patients for surgeries, which includes the opportunity for conversation with all the patients. The next two days are the most interesting; in the OR holding area, where patients meet their team that will be with them in the operating room (which can include an anesthesiologist, surgeon, and nurse), Rachel observes these meetings and eventually can watch procedures occur. The first procedure she watched was a “transesophageal echocardiogram with a cardioversion, which is where they look at a patient's heart using a camera, or scope, that is inserted down their throat.” The second procedure Rachel was able to observe was a laparoscopic cholecystectomy (lap chole), which is where the patient's gallbladder is removed, and the last was a colostomy revision. Witnessing these operations occurring in real-time has been an “amazing experience” for Rachel.
Curran Garganigo drifted toward the legal field for his senior internship and ultimately landed with Winget, Spadafora & Schwartzberg, LLP, an insurance defense firm that represents defendants in insurance liability lawsuits. Curran treks to their Stamford branch and begins his day greeting and checking in with his coworkers, as well as helping with any immediate letters or emails that must be sent. He has proved vital to the firm in handling administrative tasks such as scanning documents and organization. Most impressively, he has been able to sit in on several attorneys’ mediations and lawsuits and watch the gripping back and forth unfold on Zoom. “Getting to learn and see firsthand what being an attorney is all about is awesome for gaining exposure to the field,” Curran explains, and it is clear that WS & S provided just that!
Evia Rodriguez has lasted through her internship at Henny Penny Farm, a feat that is apparently extremely impressive - the three interns from Staples High School barely made it past the first thirty minutes, and one of them threw up. Otherwise, Henny Penny has proved to be a very exciting place to work; Evia begins the day feeding the sheep, goats, ducks, pigs, rabbits, cats, chickens, and even rams, and some days include collecting eggs. Other tasks range from taking care of the baby goats and herding sheep to more laborious ones, like pulling fence posts out of the ground, to the most dreaded task of all - cleaning out the duck house. Evia’s experience caring for the animals was never dull, and as an added bonus, she has learned a great deal about farm work.
Priya Natarajan, outfitted in her bright blue scrubs (“THEY’RE LIKE PAJAMAS!”) and green scrub cap, preps the pre-op areas for anticipated patients at the Wilton Surgery Center every morning for her senior internship. “Wilton Surgery Center is an ambulatory surgical center,” Priya explains, where the primary procedures include eye and GI-related operations; these include “cataracts, eye plastics, colonoscopies, and endoscopies” (which Priya will hopefully be able to observe first-hand by the end of her internship). On arrival, she heads to the PACU, or the post-anesthesia care unit, and cleans all the stretchers to be brought back to pre-op to be reused for new patients. In addition, she preps beds gets food for patients, especially those who have undergone colonoscopies and haven’t eaten for a long period of time. On special occasions, Priya has had the opportunity to hook up patients to monitors, look at blood pressure, and even got to use a glucometer and observe an operation for cataracts. The most valuable experience, however, was speaking and learning from the surgical techs, nurses, nurse anesthetists or CRNAs, patient care technicians, and surgeons themselves - everything she describes as a more “hands-on medical experience.”