In this piece, we hear from Naomi in Year 12 about her experiences attending two medicine-focused summer courses at Stanford University.
Written by Naomi, Year 12
Over the summer, I attended two summer internship programs that I was very kindly offered a place on earlier in February: Stanford University’s CSI (a clinical medicine course) and Stanford’s SASI (their science, anaesthesia and technology internship). Although skeptical at first, my mother and I decided that it would be beneficial to apply to courses overseas in order to meet other future medics from around the world, and it certainly was as I met aspiring doctors from over eight different countries during the summer! As with the vast majority of internships and summer courses, I was asked to write some short pieces on myself in addition to my responses to some given prompts, such as “Describe a problem in today’s healthcare system and attempt to formulate a solution for it”, as part of the application process. Writing about yourself and ‘selling’ your best qualities can be difficult, however, I found that it feels easiest to speak from the heart and, more importantly, focus on highlighting challenging experiences that you have overcome (as these often say the most about you as a person).
The courses, whilst usually held in sunny California, occurred online this year as a result of the pandemic- yet I was still sent my own personalised pair of scrubs, suturing kit and stethoscope, along with lots of other goodies to help me feel welcome! Both courses consisted of seminars from current professors and doctors, anatomy classes, projects and dissections to help us develop our understanding of the field that we are interested in, which I found gave the courses a unique and consistently challenging working environment. My favourite activity was, strangely, the heart dissection since I had never shown an interest in cardiology before- although the ‘Day in the life of an OBGYN’ was, personally, very useful for gaining insight into my desired specialty. Because of this, I would also encourage people who are not sure of a specialty they would like to go into to go for this opportunity as it really helped me broaden my perspective of different fields.
Overall, I highly recommend summer internships for both CV benefits and the fabulous learning experiences you have access to!