A summer internship allowed a UNMC College of Nursing student the chance to see all facets of nursing practice while working with U.S. military veterans.
Olivia Ball, a senior BSN student at the Omaha division, completed the Department of Veteran Affairs VA-Student Trainee Experience Program at the Nebraska-Western Iowa Health Care System over the summer.
The VA-STEP internship is a 10-week program that allows nursing students the opportunity to work alongside a registered nurse to provide care for veterans. Experiences include the medical/surgical in-patient unit, emergency rooms, operating rooms, intensive care units and mental health units.
Ball, an Omaha native, said she learned about the program during a presentation to her class by Robert Laws, VA-STEP program manager, and a recent VA-STEP student from UNMC. She said the program’s scope caught her attention and ultimately led to her application.
“Through the program, you get to rotate through almost all of the units at the VA,” she said. Her fellow student commended the program for providing more exposure in specialized areas — the operating room, the ICU – than some students may get during clinicals.
Ball said one of the more eye-opening experiences was working in the ICU for three weeks. What she described as an “intense” experience also is one she believes gave her additional skills and insights that will be useful in her nursing career.
“I was able to learn more in-depth assessments, medication titrations and how to wean somebody off of the ventilator,” she said. “Those were things I had not had the opportunity to see in clinicals.”
Aside from nursing skills, Ball said the internship also helped strengthen her organizational and management abilities. At times, Ball said, she was working alongside a nurse caring for up to five patients. As the summer progressed, Ball said the nurse encouraged her to take on more organizational duties of the day ahead.
“Just getting that organizational time and being responsible for more patients than you necessarily would in your first-year clinical really helped prepare me for the next semester,” she said.
While Ball appreciated gaining new skills and testing the waters of multiple areas of nursing, she said one of her favorite parts of the program was working with U.S. military veteran employees and patients.
“You’re working with predominantly older men who served either mostly in Vietnam or the Gulf Wars,” she said. “Being able to give back to a population that gave a lot to our country meant a lot to me.”