Syllabus, BIO 398, Sky Ridge Medical Center Internship

  • BIO 398 – INTERNSHIP IN MEDICINE, 2 CREDITS, at least 90 hours total for semester
  • Prerequisite is General Biology I with lab (BIO 1080/90), General Biology II with lab (BIO 1081/91), General Microbiology lecture and lab (BIO 2400) and Junior or Senior Level standing. Students must also be Biology majors, pre-medical or pre-physician assistant students, and have a minimum GPA of 3.3

Key Personnel:

-Faculty Advisor: Dr. Clare Hays, (303) 615-0777, SI 2032, [email protected] (email is preferred); fax is (303) 556-6426

-Classroom to Career Hub – Internships: (303) 615-1333, 325 ADMIN, Email is [email protected] and contact is Cassie Mullin, [email protected]

-Sky Ridge Medical Center Lone Tree Volunteer Coordinator: John Penn, (720) 255-1998, Email is [email protected]

Qualifications for Internship:

  • Must be a Metro Student
  • Must have a declared MSU Biology major
  • Must have at least a 3.3 MSU cumulative GPA
  • Must be at least a junior status or 60+ credit hours completed and/or transferred into Metro.
  • If you are a transfer student, you must complete at least one semester here at MSU before registering for the program
  • You must be able to complete about 100 hours of volunteering at the hospital for the semester.  This is 6-7 hours per week.

If you meet the above qualifications:

Contact Dr. Hays and receive approval.  Once you have been approved by Dr. Hays,  apply through the Classroom to Career Hub.  Log into Career Link, which is located in the Student Hub (msudenver.edu/studenthub) towards the bottom of the page.  Use your MSU Denver single sign-on credentials.  In the left hand navigation menu, click Internship Credit.  Fill out the form until all asterisked items in the form are filled out. The form will be signed electronically by typing your name and submitting it.  Approval is needed by student, C2Hub, Employer, Dr. Hays and Dr. Gagliardi-Seeley (Chair of Biology). Once the approval process is complete, Dr. Gagliardi-Seeley will enter an override to allow you to register and notify you that you may now register for the course.  Here are more detailed instructions: Internship Process, self register

For your MSU Denver Application, refer to your these MedVantage Internship Specific Learning Objectives.

You will also need to fill out an application to Sky Ridge Medical Center at least a month ahead of your internship and attend an in-person interview.  Please indicate somewhere on your application that you are part of the MSU Denver MedVantage program.  Contact John Penn for The Sky Ridge Medical Center application. 

Your Sky Ridge Medical Center internship will begin with orientation and training. You are required to complete 90 hours of volunteer work for this internship, which is 6 hours/week.  While your working hours are flexible, understand that many opportunities are not available if you choose to work nights or weekends when many normal hospital operations are not occurring.  Your volunteer work will include regular volunteer duties such as greeting patients and families, staffing desks, transporting patients, escorting visitors, and re-stocking rooms.  Additionally, efforts will be made to place you in a couple of diagnostic or clinical settings of your choice, but you need to be flexible.  Observations may be included in your 90 hours, but any informal shadowing (connections you make on your own) will be done above and beyond the 90 hours of required work.


PAPERS

  • A total of 3 papers are required for the internship. Two of the papers are 1-2 page clinical reports of a medical procedure, disease, or type of therapy observed at the internship. The student must research the paper and include the references (at least one) in a bibliography. Depending on the chosen topic, the paper might include: Definitions of new terms, anatomical applications, physiological principles, signalment, etiology, pathogenesis, and prognosis of diseases presented, analysis of laboratory data, prognosis. Hand in the papers to Dr. Hays as an attachment to an email. Here are some good examples:  Difficile  and  Parkinson’s.
  • The last (3rd) paper is an analysis of the internship. Provide a summary of your experience. What went well and what did not. Provide information that will allow us to improve the internship in the future.

GRADES

The following are the minimum requirements for each grade:

GRADE of “A”

  • 3 excellent papers turned in before finals week of the semester. After you turn in the first paper, Dr. Hays will provide feedback as to whether or not it is considered an “excellent” paper. If it is not, suggestions will be provided to make it an excellent paper. You will have a chance to redo the first paper to change it to an “excellent” paper if you wish.
  • A majority of “high” evaluations from your volunteer supervisor at the hospital.
  • Completion of the 90 hours by finals week. The 90 hours includes both volunteering and shadowing.

GRADE of “B”

  • 3 very good papers turned in before finals week of the semester. After you turn in the first paper, Dr. Hays will provide feedback as to whether or not it is considered a “very good” paper. You will have a chance to redo the first paper to change it to an “excellent” paper if you wish.
  • A majority of “medium” evaluations from your volunteer supervisor at the hospital.
  • Completion of the 90 hours by finals week. The 90 hours includes both volunteering and shadowing.

GRADE of “C”

  • 3 good papers turned in before finals week of the semester. After you turn in the first paper, Dr. Hays will provide feedback as to whether or not it is considered a “good” paper. You will have a chance to redo the first paper to change it to an “excellent” paper if you wish.
  • A majority of “moderate” evaluations from your from your volunteer supervisor at the hospital.
  • Completion of the 90 hours by finals week. The 90 hours includes both volunteering and shadowing.

GRADE of “D”

  • 2 below average papers turned in before finals week of the semester. After you turn in the first paper, Dr. Hays will provide feedback as to whether or not it is considered a “below average” paper. You will have a chance to redo the first paper to change it to an “excellent” paper if you wish.
  • A majority of “low” evaluations from your from your volunteer supervisor at the hospital.
  • Completion of the 90 hours by finals week. The 90 hours includes both volunteering and shadowing.

GRADE of “F”

  • Handing in fewer than 3 required papers.
  • A majority of “low” evaluations from your from your volunteer supervisor at the hospital.
  • Not completing the 90 hours by finals week. The 90 hours includes both volunteering and shadowing.

BEHAVIOR/PROBLEMS:

If you run into any problems with the internship, contact one of the key personnel listed above sooner, rather than later.


Helpful Tips from a former MedVantage Student:

For those students that are going into this program, here are a few handy suggestions that will really help you out.
1) When you first arrive the staff will not know why you are there. Make yourself known by introducing yourself to everyone and tell them why you are there. Make sure you emphasize that you want to learn and what you want to see.

2) Have patience; realize that the staff is there to serve the patients and not you. They are volunteering their time to teach you. Therefore try to help them out whenever you can. The staff is much more willing to help someone out that helps them out.

3) Don’t go to the observation experiences without reading something about the field first. You will only get as much out of the experience as you put into it. If you know something about the field before you go in, then you can ask questions about what you are seeing. Otherwise you might feel a little overwhelmed by everything that is going on and you will miss out on a very good opportunity to learn.

4) Try to have fun and relax. Don’t feel like you should know everything and remember there is no such thing as a foolish question. Remember you are there to learn. My experiences with the staff showed that they were more than willing to answer any question that I had, and I had quite a few!