Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — On Jan. 31, students of the Maine School of Science and Mathematics who participated in internships during the school’s January Term made presentations to their classmates regarding their experiences.
Aroostook Republican Photo/Natalie Bazinet
Adaeze Olugbemi answered questions to fellow MSSM students regarding her ten day internship at The Aroostook Medical Center during the school’s January Term.
Two students decided to localize their learning in Aroostook County; Kiri Strack-Grose participated in an internship at the Well Spring Health Center in Presque Isle, and Adaeze Olugbemi participated in an internship at The Aroostook Medical Center, also in Presque Isle.
“I was approached in the fall by Kiri about the possibility of participating in an internship,” said internship sponsor Eva Shay, D.O., “she sounded truly interested in Osteopathy, so I agreed to let her intern for two weeks. I asked her to read parts of a textbook before hand and to familiarize herself with a few Web pages so that she could understand more about the field of osteopathy, and I asked her to get a book called the anatomy coloring book so that she would be able to understand while I was explaining things,” Dr. Shay added, “I have no doubt that she studied.”
“Part of being a physician is promising to help train those behind us and to promote the profession,” Dr. Shay said, “I think she did very well. I take students into my office all the time, maybe three or four a year to train with me; if Kiri is an indication of the average student that they’re putting out at MSSM, then I’m very impressed.”
“I really enjoyed my internship,” said Strack-Grose. “There was another intern there, Chad, who was a four year medical student: even though a lot of what Dr. Shay talked about with him went over my head, I was able to catch some things. If Dr. Shay was busy with a patient who didn’t allow student interns to participate, sometimes I was able to observe Chad with a patient, so that I was still benefiting from the experience,” she added.
“I graduated from college 18 years ago, so it’s helpful to have a current fourth year medical student able to give her perspective on what it’s like currently to be a medical student,” said Dr. Shay.
“Not only did I learn a lot from my internship, but it also helped me formulate expectations of my course load at college,” Strack-Grose said. “Before, I was thinking about declaring a pre-med major even though I really enjoy art and English classes; after speaking with Chad, I think that I can still do a lot of the artsy classes that I enjoy and still get into a good medical school,” she added.
“Most of her internship has been observation — due to medical and legal issues, she obviously can’t participate — but some patients have given her permission to touch them, but mostly, I talk with her and the patient about what I’m doing as I do it, explain the treatment, anatomical connections, etc. so that I’m basically teaching as much as possible while I’m in the room with the patient and the intern,” explained Dr. Shay.
Adaeze Olugbemi had similarly positive experiences during her internship at The Aroostook Medical Center where she focused of radiology and neurology.
“I loved the CAT scans and the room where I got to see everything and learn about the CAT scans; I got to read them and then was able to dictate about them and diagnose what was going on,” Olugbemi said, “It was pretty amazing learning even more in-depth about what is in the body and how that shows up on the scan; it’s pretty awesome.”
“Going into my internship, I didn’t expect to be as involved as I was,” Olugbemi added. “I didn’t expect to be welcomed as much as I was, to see as many patients as I did, or to go everywhere that I went.”
Olugbemi answered questions about her internship experience that were posed by her fellow students as they gathered around her poster presentation; some students had serious questions about job performance, while others wanted her to compare her internship with what they’ve seen on hit TV show, “House.”
“When you hear about a career, you don’t normally hear about what goes on daily,” she explained, “you hear about the big events, or how much money the field makes, but I really wanted to know how it all worked out each day and I think that this is definitely something that I want to go into because I really enjoyed it.”
Whereas January Term presentation day was informative for all who attended, it also allowed some of the students to reflect on the opportunities offered to them by being a student of MSSM.
“In a normal public school, we would have basically had to do this all on our own,” Olugbemi explained, “at MSSM, not only is it mandatory to do something over these two weeks, but I was able to receive help sorting everything out and focusing on what needed to be done for the internship, not to mention that if I hadn’t been taking the classes that I’m offered here, I probably wouldn’t have understood all of the information that I did at my internship. It was a whole lot easier to learn at the hospital with the background already established at MSSM,” she added.
Though most internship were in Maine, some students ventured to other states, like Connecticut, and even other countries, like South Korea.
