Five Tips to Prepare Interns for Healthcare Careers

1. Five Tips to Prepare Interns for Healthcare Careers Internships are a necessary part of the preparations for a career as a doctor. Unfortunately, far too many medical school students have no idea what they are getting into when they graduate. They view a 12-month internship as the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel without understanding just how difficult it is going to be. The start of an internship does indeed mark the beginning of the end of the educational process. However, that by no means makes it easy. In fact, most seasoned doctors would likely say, if asked, the most difficult part of their training was that 12-month internship. The internship is designed to be difficult in order to weed out those who may possess the knowledge, but not the drive, to be a successful medical professional. HealthJobs.com offers the current class of future medical school graduates the following five tips to prepare for internship: 1. Understand Your Place The most important thing the future intern can do to prepare for the next 12 months is to recognize his or her place in the healthcare “food chain.” Even the top graduate of a given class starts back at square one on July 1. Understand that you really know nothing when it comes to real-world medicine and that your primary objective is to gain as much knowledge and experience as possible. Interns who enter their residency programs with the wrong mindset in this regard often struggle. They do not work well with others, they constantly find themselves in the cross hairs of supervisors, and they drive themselves insane by always thinking they know a better way to do things. Save yourself the frustration by understanding your place before you graduate. What you learned in school is book knowledge; what you are learning in residency is real-world application. 2. Prepare to Make Mistakes The whole purpose of the internship is to learn how to practically apply the knowledge gained in school. As such, the application of that knowledge will result in you making some very definite mistakes. That does not make you stupid or unqualified to be a doctor. It makes you human.

2. Be prepared to make stupid mistakes you never thought you were capable of. Also, be prepared to be corrected when you do make those mistakes. It is nothing to get upset over or rebel against; rather, it is an opportunity to learn and improve. 3. Learn to Listen The digital age has given rise to more and more people speaking their mind on more and more things. However, being so outspoken is not necessarily a good quality for an intern to have. If you are the type of person who likes to freely speak his or her mind, now is the time to start practicing how to be quiet. During your residency, you will need to listen more and speak less – a lot less. As a bonus, developing this skill will pay huge dividends long after your internship is complete. 4. Adopt a Professional Attitude In addition to a time of learning, the internship is also a time of transitioning from student to professional. It stands to reason there is no better time to begin adopting a professional attitude than right now. A professional attitude plays out in a number of areas, including how you carry yourself, how you dress, the articulate nature of your speech, the seriousness with which you take your work, and so on. Trust us when we say that a professional attitude will go a long way toward enjoying a successful internship. If you approach your internship with the mentality of a frat house student, you are going to have a difficult time. 5. Develop Observation Skills One of the greatest teachers during your internship will be simple observation. By paying attention to how established professionals do their jobs, in the smallest detail, you will learn a lot more than you could ever learn from a textbook. You can practice your observation skills now by making a point of paying attention to details in everything you do. It turns out that individuals with acute observation skills make for some of the best doctors as well. So make a point of developing the skill of observation before you begin your residency. Perhaps you are nearing the end of your residency and you are ready to begin looking for work. Alternatively, perhaps you are a seasoned medical veteran looking for new job. In either case, HealthJobs.com is here to help with access to more than 300,000 jobs across the country. Our comprehensive healthcare jobs database gives you the most access to the most jobs anywhere. When you use HealthJobs.com, your job search is an easy and efficient as possible.