Starting An Internship – Three People You Have To Introduce Yourself To!

Whenever you start an internship you should introduce yourself to everyone, who’s working there. But some people will be absent, busy, or just not interested you. So you have to identify the most important ones. There are three people you absolutely must introduce yourself to. 

The Attending Doctor:

She is the one, who is in charge. Even though she may be absent most of the time, she is the one responsible for what happens to the patients.  Possibly she stops by only once a day to discuss open questions.

Still – she is gonna be the one you want a letter of recommendation from.
So don’t mess up the first impression! Introduce yourself – the earlier the better. But don’t interrupt him in a conversation.

Possibly you’ll have to wait ten minutes until she finishes a conversation. That’s OK.

Another good option is to have another doctor introduce you to her.

Don’t be offended, if she doesn’t take the time to get to know your whole story. This is not about you, she is just busy.

The head nurse:

He is the one, who manages the ward you’ll be working in. He makes sure everything works smoothly and everyone obeys the rules.

Without him the ward is in chaos, so he definitely has to know who everybody is, and what their position and responsibility is.

If you fail to introduce yourself to him, you won’t have a good time there. Trust me! (And don’t ask me how I know that…)

The Doctor

Your mentor. He is the one, you’ll be shadowing around. If he likes you, you’ll learn a ton from him. He is the one who does the basic work as a doctor and from him, you’ll probably learn the most.
By the way. Even though you have introduced yourself, odds are, they will have forgotten your name ten minutes later. So if they are anything like me, they will be thankful if  you wear a name tag.