Photo courtesy NewYork-Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital | Thompson & Bender
The prominent Westchester County hospital hosts the next generation of local health professionals in its Summer Youth Experience program.
Fifteen interns at this year’s Summer Youth Experience Program at NewYork-Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital gained knowledge that will last a lifetime.
Throughout the five-week program, interns received valuable workplace experience and skills in a variety of settings throughout the hospital, from shadowing nurses to working in engineering to helping with administrative operations. This once-in-a-lifetime experience has given this group of teens a chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at many roles in healthcare.
The program consists of teenagers who have at least one parent employed by NewYork-Presbyterian.
Gabrielle Calderon, a 19-year-old nursing major from Ossining, spent the month as a nursing intern, shadowing one of the hospital’s patient care directors and doing tasks such as attending rounds. “I’m learning a lot and enjoying the chance to get hands-on experience and meet patients while having someone right beside me to answer all of my questions,” she says.
Allison Morelo, a 16-year-old high school student from Yonkers interning in the Cheryl R. Lindenbaum Comprehensive Cancer, noted that she found the program to be an enriching experience, especially because now she can see what healthcare workers, including her mother, do each day. Her mother Alicia Guerrero is a patient experience lead, and also served as coordinator for the hospital’s Summer Youth Experience Program.
“I’m proud and honored to have been chosen as the coordinator for such an amazing and enthusiastic group of interns,” Guerrero says. “As a mother, it was an opportunity to show my daughter why I love what I do and why I’m so proud to work for NewYork-Presbyterian Hudson Valley Hospital.”
On the administrative operations side, 17-year-old Cortlandt resident Nish Mistry spent weeks working on an emergency management plan as well as other projects to enhance efficiency at the hospital. “The biggest thing that I’ve learned here is that the team anticipates and prepares for every possible situation,” Mistry says. “Problem-solving is something you need in all career paths no matter where you go.”
This marked the second year of the program.
