Anita Satish, Gr. 12 and Avanika Krishnaswamy ’09 spent an exciting part of their summers as interns at Kaiser Permanente. Satish, who aspires to become a doctor, felt the internship could help her gain more insight into the field of medicine. She even spent part of the previous summer in the surgical ward of a hospital in India.

“I knew that the medical institutions in the U.S would be very different and wanted to get a feel for the environment and everyday life of doctors,” she said. “I also wanted to explore the different medical fields and learn more about them to see if they appealed to me.”

Satish and Krishnaswamy spent their time at Kaiser as student observers. “Our main duty was to learn as much as we could and ask the doctors any questions that we had,” Satish said. The primary goal was to learn as much about the various medical fields as possible, and to get a close-up look at the daily activities and experiences of a medical doctor. The interns spent time in such departments as neurology, cardiology, general surgery and pediatrics, to name a few.

“The few days we spent with the neurology department were my favorite, and I learned a lot about neurology that I didn’t know before,” Satish said, “both in terms of medical and scientific knowledge, as well as the day-to-day ups and downs that neurologists face.”

Satish also enjoyed the talks she had with the doctors she and Krishnaswamy were observing. “They were very receptive to us and our questions, and provided us with their own stories and honest insights and perspectives,” she said.