Some of you may be familiar with the University Health Services (UHS), which is the go-to health care service on campus. I’ve had the pleasure of serving there as a clinic intern during Spring 2024 and this semester. As I’m writing this, I’ve just completed my weekly shift and I wanted to reflect on what I’ve learned from this experience. 

The first thing I experienced was how much healthcare is a team effort. The UHS building houses more than just physicians, nurses, and patients, it also includes counseling services, a laboratory, an x-ray facility, a pharmacy, the on-campus emergency medical services, and more. Even on an average UHS visit, you’ll likely encounter various people: from the front desk who will check you in and direct you to the correct floor, to the clinic intern who might take your vitals, to the nurse who could give you vaccines, and eventually the provider. What you might not realize is that though those were the people who you saw during the visit, there are a lot of behind-the-scenes jobs involving sanitizing the rooms, creating the patient schedule for the day, pairing nurses with providers, researchers in the lab figuring out if you have the flu, and more. All in all, it made me extremely appreciative of everyone who is a part of the care process at UHS!

The second thing I gained from this experience is the confirmation that I wanted to pursue medical school. A question they often ask you in medical school interviews is why you specifically want to be a doctor, especially because wanting to “help others,” could easily be achieved by any healthcare professional. As a clinic intern my responsibilities most closely represent a small portion of what a nurse would do. From learning directly from nurses and spending most of my time interacting with them, I’ve come to appreciate how they are literally the backbone of healthcare. At the UHS, their role centers around collecting basic health information of a patient to relay to the provider to enhance their diagnoses and decision making. Through this experience, I was able to understand the nurse-physician dynamic and realize that what I’m most curious and passionate about is being the medical detective and deciding the direction of care.

Overall, I could not be more thankful for the wonderful team at UHS and the opportunity to gain valuable patient care hours while being a full time student. This experience has inspired me to continue pursuing a career in medicine and also helped me refine my own interest and gain a deeper understanding of health care as a whole.