FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
SUU Nursing Student Experiences a Summer as a Mayo Clinic Nurse
A 10-week long externship at the Mayo Clinic gives SUU nursing major hands-on experience.
September 12, 2016
Cedar City, UT. - World renowned Mayo Clinic of Rochester, MN, offers 54 nursing students from across the country an experience they'll never forget. Out of over 900 applicants 54 were chosen to be an intern in different medical specialties in the "Summer III" nursing externship program. From the Cardiothoracic Surgical Intensive Care Unit to the Medical Hospice/Respite Care unit, these interns had the opportunity every nursing student dreams about. Southern Utah University nursing program's very own Sadie Nemelka was chosen to be a Summer III intern at Mayo Clinic's Saint Mary's Hospital on the neurosurgical unit. She spent the whole 2016 summer on this unit learning different nursing skills in addition to moving to other units in the hospital to learn about other nursing specialties. Sadie was able to perform hands-on nursing experience with the guidance of her assigned registered nurses known as "clinical coaches."
Sadie worked on the neurosurgical unit learning nursing skills associated with different neurosurgical patients. These specific patients traveled to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester to seek treatment for many neurological problems/diseases. Some of these issues Sadie worked with included: malignant/benign tumors, trauma/injuries, and genetic conditions having to do with the brain or spinal cord. She assessed, prepared, and cared for these patients before and after having surgical procedures to treat these issues. As a Summer III intern she was not able to administer medications, but she was allowed to shadow her assigned clinical coach to help with these medications. She quoted:
"I'm glad that I was not able to administer medications because it gave me the chance to watch my nurses working with certain drugs without the stress of actually giving them. One of the hardest things with nursing is that you have the potential to kill a patient, and that's something I learned can happen when shadowing my nurses during medication administration..."
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SUU senior, Sadie, heard about the application process for this externship from her administrators at SUU's nursing program. A past nursing student from SUU also joined the Summer III program and took a job at the Mayo Clinic following graduation. After hearing about his time at the Mayo Clinic and the application process, Sadie quickly decided that she wanted to take this opportunity. She wanted to use this externship as her EDGE project, a project SUU requires for graduation. The EDGE Program allowed her to prepare for this externship and plan how she will complete her project. The EDGE Program is designed to give students extra experience outside of the classroom, and this is exactly what Sadie set out to do.
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CONTACT INFORMATION:
Sadie Nemelka
Cell: (801)696-8095
Email: loubidge@gmail.com
Address: 212 South 700 West Cedar City, UT 84720
Web: http://loubidge.wixsite.com/mayoclinicedge