High-School Hospital Shadowing Opportunity

 SOTD: MARINA - "Are You Satisfied?"

A hospital nearby was holding a 1-day, 5-hour, high school shadowing event where people got to pick 2 stations to follow around for a while. I chose the operating room and the pharmacy months in advance.

I already know what I want to do in the future (medical examiner), and I have backups (which include mortician, funeral director, or a medical illustrator), but still thought this would be a cool experience. And it certainly was!

When I got to the OR, I was able to watch most of a hernia surgery (wow!), and nearly passed out in the OR but we don't need to talk about that. I should've expected it because I was feeling too warm, didn't have much of an appetite that day (so I didn't eat a ton; not great in hindsight), I didn't sleep a lot (too anxious)... it was bound to happen to me. Still, not a fan. At least the staff and nurses were nice to me, and that made me feel a lot better.

The pharmacists I followed around were really cool. Definitely made me want to consider it, even if I am already set on medical examination (and am halfway through my AS in biology before I even graduate high school... not that I'd need to switch majors, though I'm sure chem would've been more helpful for pharmacy school).

Also this is arguably the least important aspect of the whole thing, but it was made very clear that the dress code was "professional business casual," implying something close to office wear but a little more casual than that. I think I was the only one that tried out of the ~15 people who showed up because everyone else was just... casual. This doesn't matter at all, but it feels like I was the only one who was freaking out over it. This is also the only photo I took (and was allowed to take).