Internship with Multidisciplinary Heart Failure Team as a Meaningful High School Student Experience

BACKGROUND: High school students are expected to engage in a number of experiences leading up to the college application process. Identifying meaningful opportunities for internships or observerships can be difficult. METHODS AND RESULTS: After obtaining the appropriate hospital regulatory approvals including a HIPPA security attestation, the high school student (B.S.) was offered a structured four-week internship experience with the Advanced Heart Failure team. The student engaged in the following activities: inpatient rounds- observing history, physical exam and treatment decisions in 10-15 patients/day, outpatient clinics- observing care in approx. 5 patients/afternoon, 4 days in the operating room observing 1-2 cardiac surgeries and 4 half-days in the cardiac catheterization laboratory observing 3-5 procedures. The student also attended multidisciplinary heart transplant and mechanical circulatory support (MCS) clinical meetings and attended didactic instruction by MCS nurse coordinators and bioengineers. Ample opportunities for questions and discussion were provided. The student assessed this experience as highly engaging with the top insights being: a) the complexity of healthcare, b) the rigor of established processes and c) the integration of research into clinical care. The program provided an opportunity to learn about different career paths in the medical and bioengineering fields, and was very insightful as far as learning about the importance of multi-member multi-disciplinary teams in the work-place. CONCLUSIONS: Advanced Heart Failure teams routinely provide training to a wide range of trainees in the medical field. The described experience demonstrates that it can also serve as a nourishing environment for learners at high school level, and spark interest of these young learners in the biomedical field.