This internship benefited my future career by providing me with the necessary skills to talk about death and how to comfort future clients when they feel like giving up on their lives. Since my internship was at Infinity Hospice Care, this skill will mostly be useful when I am talking to families and clients that have family members close to death.
My internship ties into psychology by teaching me different forms of communication. Some of the patients that I talk to are very open about any topic because they are happy to have any type of socialization, but I learned about visual communication and boundaries in my interactions with my patients. Since the patients’ stories can be uncomfortable, it is up to me to communicate my discomfort with the topics. I learned some visual communication techniques about how my patients react during my visits. I can tell if they are feeling sad and want some time for themselves. I believe that these skills will be beneficial in my future career because I can gain more information with or without speaking.
There are no educational requirements that are needed beforehand in order to be successful in this internship because my internship taught me all of the necessary skills that I would need to know and more if I asked for any more knowledge. When I was accepted into this internship, I did not know how to make flyers or how to write professional emails to the company. Now I know how to make many flyers with multiple designs and professionally communicate with important people. One major skill is to be very empathetic because most of the patients are very gloomy and are always talking about death.
Although I care for all of my patients that I visit, I am not interested in this particular career after completing my internship because it is emotionally draining. After every visitation, I am physically and emotionally worn out, so I normally take a short nap to re-energize myself before I start any other tasks.
Some skills that are needed to be gained in order to secure a full-time position in this field are stress management and time management. The maximum amount of time for my visits is two hours, and I normally socialize within that time frame. An obstacle that I had for the time being was logging my hours late because the visit was very draining and caused stress. A technique that I developed for myself and advice for incoming interns is to take five to ten minutes alone before I drive home because this helps me focus on myself and my mental health.
Hi Daniel!
I applaud you for interning at an emotional demanding place. Grief and death are hard topics. Being able to have exposure to such topics and learning how to navigate such topics and conversations is crucially important and can definitely benefit you in any field in case you work with a colleague that is grieving. I understand not wanting to delve into that field. However, I am glad that you were able to develop visual communication skills and learn boundaries. I like the advice you give as well. It is important to allocate time yourself and implement self-care in such a field. Thank you for sharing!