Georgia College and State University

Reflection Paper

Logan Littleton

Internship Course, KINS 4306

Dr. Ernie Kaninjing

11 April 2021
Introduction:

My name is Logan Littleton and I interned at St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital in

Greensboro, Georgia at Lake Oconee. St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital is a twenty-five bed

acute care critical access hospital accredited by the Joint Commission of Health Care

Organizations, serving the Greensboro and Greater Greene County areas of East Georgia

(SMGSH, n.d.). They offer a broad span of services including general surgery and a twenty-four

hour emergency room. My supervisor at St. Mary’s is Bria Brown and she is an alumni of

GCSU. She really knows how the program operates and how it is supposed to allow us to learn

the ins and outs of how a hospital operates on a daily basis.

The mission of St. Mary’s is, “We, St. Mary’s Health Care System and Trinity Health,

serve together in the spirit of the Gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence

within our communities” (SMGSH, n.d.). Also, St. Mary’s Vision is, “As a mission-driven health

organization, we will become the national leader in improving the health of our communities and

each person we serve. We will be the most trusted health partner for life” (n.d.). During my

internship I have personally seen the mission and vision of the hospital play out very smoothly

and affectively. Since St. Mary’s is a faith based hospital, we are able to openly pray on a daily

basis. We have one particular lady that reads a devotion daily and prays at the end of the

devotion. Starting the day off with the word of God is great.

The clients that are served range from the largest donors to the hospital to someone that

can barely afford medical care, but all these patients are treated equally no matter their

socioecomic status. All clients that walk through the doors of St. Mary’s are given the greatest of

care that the hospital can provide to them and if they cannot provide the care they specifically

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need the patients are sent to a facility that can provide that specific care and specialize in what

the patient needs to be seen for.

Description of Experiences:

My role as an intern varied throughout my whole internship experience. I started out at

the beginning of the internship helping the Manager of Support Services with her daily tasks and

still helped her until the end of the internship program. Throughout the internship Bria allowed

us to experience all the different departments of the hospital to allow us to see how the hospital

setting operated on a daily basis.

When I look back at my internship and think about what was the best thing, I would have

to say it is making personal connections with all the staff in the different departments. St. Mary’s

honestly feels like one huge family and I really enjoy that feeling. Something that feels really

rewarding is that the staff really sees how hard I work and they want me to stay at St. Mary’s

Good Samaritan after graduation. Hearing the staff say that they want me to stay and not leave

really makes me feel great and wanted. A part of my internship that was challenging was having

all the COVID restrictions and it limiting what I could experience from an administrative

perspective. COVID really limited what we could do in the community with the different

community members.

What I wish I could have done more of is starting off my internship in the emergency

department. They really won me over from the moment I stepped in their department and made

all the other different departments jealous that I wanted to spend my time in the ER. Something

that I wish I would have done less was work in the gift shop. Working the gift shop was one of

my least favorite things to do since there was not much traffic to come through to purchase

merchandise.

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Perception and Evaluation of the Internship:

This internship surpassed my personal expectations. I started to look for internships in the

spring of 2020 because my advisor advised me that I needed to look early because the good ones

always went fast. When I talked with Hollie that semester I just knew that I wanted to do my

internship at St. Mary’s Good Samaritan Hospital because she told me that the internship

supervisor was an alumni to GCSU and knew what we needed to experience and see throughout

the internship experience. St. Mary’s was my first choice, and to find out at the beginning of the

fall semester that I got the opportunity to intern there was a great feeling. I have been able to

experience everything that I could imagine and even more than I thought I would be able to

experience.

The organization was very open to the ideas and contributions from myself and the other

intern. Myself and the other intern were tasked with various projects for different departments

and our ideas were very much appreciated. For example, we were tasked to spruce up a couple of

boards by the two clock in stations, so myself and the other intern came up with the idea of

turning the boards into uplifting scripture verses for when the staff was feeling down, upset,

anxious and a few others. When we presented that idea to Bria she loved it and we began

working on them. When the different staff members would see us they would tell us how much

they enjoyed all the different bible verses for the different scenarios they were facing.

Bria was a great supervisor because she has been in our shoes before and it was not that

long ago to mention. She has allowed me to experience everything that I could imagine and if I

wanted to observe a department she would always allow me to. Also, she always asked us if we

wanted to experience something new. She was always there for me when I needed to ask

questions and she always had an answer or found out an answer if she did not know it. Honestly,

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I do not think that my experience could have been improved because I was allowed to experience

anything that I asked to experience. I would most definitely recommend St. Mary’s Good

Samaritan for future interns. I have had the best internship experience that I could have possibly

asked for. I would absolutely consider a career in a setting like St. Mary’s, because I have always

been drawn to the hospital setting. Being able to intern with them has just confirmed that this is

what I am supposed to be doing with my degree.

Internship Preparedness:

Personally, I felt like I was very well prepared academically for this internship. The areas

that I felt most prepared/confident with were my professional communication skills, medical

terminology, working as group, and my ability to make presentations in front of a group of

people. My professional communication skills were used daily when I would answer phone calls

and speak with patients or staff members within the hospital setting. Personally, I did not feel

like I was not least prepared/confident in any areas. All of my professors have really prepared

and made me confident for a professional job and the work force.

The courses that I used most, and felt like were most helpful was my communication

courses, but all of my courses played a vital role to get me where I am today as a public health

major. My professional communications course taught me how to properly communicate in a

professional setting. Being within the hospital setting you have to be very professional towards

different patients and staff members. When I took that course several years ago I thought it was

the most pointless course, but in the long haul it has been very beneficial. Also, all of my classes

were able to be put to use at my internship, but the communication courses are the main ones that

stick out to me.

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 In my opinion, GCSU and the School of Health and Human Performance do a great job at

preparing students for real life applications of public health concepts for future employment. One

thing that I would like to suggest is for the academic advising team to hire an advisor or two that

have a degree in public health to help the public health majors with academic advising. My main

issue was that my advisor was never really on top of things unless I pushed her to be on top of it.

I understand that they advise a lot of different students, but having someone to properly advise

you is a huge thing to college students.

Internship Performance:

The new skills and knowledge that were acquired as part of my internship was learning

how a hospital functioned and how all the different departments play a vital role for it to properly

function, and even personally helping to make the hospital efficiently function. I was also able to

improve my patient interaction skills by being able to observe patients from all the different

departments. This could have been for a brief moment in passing in the halls to interacting with

patients in the emergency department, radiology department and even the lab. There is probably

an ample amount of skills and knowledge that I have gained throughout my internship but these

are the ones that most stick out.

I can honestly say that I am very satisfied with my performance on assignments, projects,

and presentations that I was given throughout my internship. Every task that I was given I gave it

my all and even more. When I was tasked with an assignment I made sure that it was done in a

reasonable time frame and sometimes even got it done on the day it was asked for. I would most

definitely rate my work a 9 out of 10. I give myself this rating because I was given some task

that I really knew how to do well. For example, the director of security asked for us to come up

with some different boards for him to use for his staff and I ran with the ideas that he gave me. I

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did a little research to figure out what he liked best and showed him some examples and he was

very thrilled with what I showed him and wanted me to start on the boards immediately. I really

exceed with my creativity to come up with different crafty projects. Personally, I do not think I

need to sharpen, hone, or develop any skills to be successful after graduation because the

environment that I did my internship was very diverse. In my opinion, my internship has greatly

prepared me for any future career that I would want.

Personal/Professional Insights/Benefits:

This internship has greatly impacted my academic goals in very positive ways, because it

makes me want to continue my education and pursue a degree that allows me to have more

interaction with patients and be able to provide one on one care that they are in need of. Also,

this internship has impacted my personal goals to become a better health care provider. I have

seen so many patients come in that are not getting the proper treatment that is needed from other

facilities other than St. Mary’s. I have personally witnessed the care and compassion that the

staff has towards their patients and how they want to provide the best care possible.

My internship experience has greatly impacted my personal growth tremendously. It has

greatly increased my confidence to work with a very diverse population that I was presented on

the daily basis at the hospital, whether it was answering the phone, working in the gift shop, or

being in the emergency room. Being within the hospital setting I was able to personally see all of

the material that has been drilled into our brains from our professors that dealt with public health

issues. I have gained insights that different communities need more health education, services for

seniors, women, youth and etc. for numerous health issues and concerns. Some things are already

implemented in the counties but they are in need of revamping and better ways to market

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themselves for the community members. I truly loved being in the hospital setting and it

confirming my passion for my career path.

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 Reference:

St. Mary's Good SAMARITAN HOSPITAL: Greensboro, GA. (n.d.). Retrieved April 05, 2021,
from https://www.stmaryshealthcaresystem.org/locations/st-marys-good-samaritan-hospital