While she may not wear a white lab coat or carry around a clipboard, Yaneth Garcia (11) is taking steps to prepare for a future in the medical field. The summer before the 2018-2019 school year, Garcia participated in an internship at the naval hospital on Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. This eye-opening event revealed the intricacies of the world of medicine to Garcia and propelled her towards a career as a physician.

  “We would get to the hospital, have a lecture, and then usually do some activities, such as explore the facility, take a tour of the emergency room, learn about sutures on pigs’ feet or dissect a cow’s heart. There wasn’t any traveling outside the base, but we did get to go to different parts of the base for our lectures,” Garcia said.

  Garcia was exposed to various branches within the field of medicine, including physical therapy and the process of labor and delivery. Rather than focusing on one specific arena, the internship program allowed for a wide scope of activities ranging from the study of trauma to the the sampling of blood.

  “The internship was a one-time summer event; I would love to do it again, but unfortunately, you can’t do it more than once. I learned so much from my experience and definitely think it will help me in the future,” Garcia said.

  Instead of being an experience that dampened her enthusiasm for nursing, Garcia’s volunteer work served to ignite her passion for medicine. One often has to sample a bit of their “dream job” to see if it truly fits their skills, abilities and interests or if it is merely a passing intrigue. In Garcia’s case, her textbook knowledge of nursing collided with her hands-on experience and cemented her plan to pursue a career as a medic.

  “I would definitely recommend it for other people, because we got different experiences with various parts of the medical field. I learned a lot from the internship, and it just made me more excited to one day enter the medical field. At the moment, I’m not too sure what I want to do, but I’m leaning towards working as a nurse or a surgeon,” Garcia said.

  As she looks forward to college and her eventual career, Garcia is determined not to let her plans for practicing medicine flatline. She is taking steps to continue being involved in internships and workshops related to surgery and human anatomy in order to gain more knowledge about how best to treat various ailments. The experience she is receiving acts as a stethoscope that tests the steady rhythm of her love for nursing, and so far, her heartbeat is strong.