Internship?

[WildFlowers84]

Hi All-

I have heard about hospitals and schools offereing new nurses the oppurtunity of an internship. My question is: do you get paid the same amount in an internship as you would working normally? Also, what are the benefits of doing one?

Thanks!

[manofcare]

I'm a fourth semester ADN student at a small community college in Texas. Our local hopitals offer internships to students in either the second or third semester of the program. They pay us around $9.00 per hour without benefits. I have been doing it for about nine months and the best part of the whole thing is the clinical competence that the experience gives you. Not only do you become familiar with the operations of the unit, but you establish a working network with some of the people that will be hiring you out of school. I enjoy working and can not stand to sit around. The first day I walked on the unit, I started looking for things to ease the nurses load. Stocked med carts, cleaned pumps, ran interference on the call bell during report, and hauled booty toward any room where there was a nurse in a hurry. Never ducked out on a code brown, and voluteered for empting the colostomy bag. Glamorous huh? Now guess who gets all of the IV starts he can handle, dresses bullet wounds, drops NG tubes, Foleys, etc. Also, I have departments fighting over me because I show up with a smile on my face and do not complain, or gossip. Also, talk to your patients, joke with them, give them a good natured hard time. I love to tell them that we get paid extra if we can keep them from sleeping, not to get rowdy when they leave the floor for a procedure, that they are roaming the halls for trouble when they ambulate. I have people that come up to me in public after they are out of the hospital to tell me thank you for sharing a sense of humor and treating them like they were special to me. I don't care what your instuctors say about being professional and such. If that means walking around like you have been sucking on a lemon, then nursing's not for me. When you are caring for someone, it's really easy to get in the habit of saying yes sir and no sir, and not feeling a thing when you say it. The patient needs you to be human first. I guarantee that this would work for you as well. Call their little boy son studmuffin and cut up with him. Laughter is great for the soul.

[MzKGoRN]

if you are meaning internships after you graduate I know that here in Texas they offer the same amount that you would be making as a nurse, but again that is only after you graduate. You have to a graduate nurse permit to work and get paid as a nurse in these internships.

I hope this helps some.