Kayla Stone
Internship Experience - Massachusetts General Hospital
This summer I had the opportunity of completing the 2023 Carol A. Ghiloni Oncology Nursing Student Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital. Through this position, I was responsible for the care of patients under the supervision and help of a Registered Nurse on a medical oncology inpatient unit. Some of my daily tasks included vital signs, ADLs (wash-ups, ambulation, toileting), medication administration, patient education, wound care, spectating procedures, and following around individuals with different hospital roles, such as a PT or NP. I was also able to participate in two observational days in Radiation Oncology and Transfusion.
Post-Grad Plans
Merrimack’s Nursing program provided me with all the skills and knowledge in order to be successful for this fellowship. Coming in with such a strong base of knowledge, I felt as if I was able to get more out of the experience. Merrimack Nursing’s emphasis on building a strong educational foundation provided me with the confidence to face clinical challenges head on. The nursing program’s structure, with starting nursing classes and clinical freshman year and gradually adding on, helped me expand my knowledge base and grow my confidence every year. Now with all the knowledge from this fellowship, I am ready to take on my senior year and put to use all of my skills that I strengthened to work.
Nursing is very hands-on, so the opportunity to be hands-on for 12 weeks was very helpful towards my education and understanding of the field of nursing. This fellowship gave me confidence in an area of nursing that I am very interested in pursuing after graduation.
“This fellowship has helped to prepare me to be a nurse because I was able to work right alongside the nurses for 12 weeks. I have learned and witnessed how to provide all aspects of patient care. All the skills I learned will have to be used in my future profession. Many of the topics I learned at Merrimack in the classroom or clinical setting came up during my fellowship, and I was able to either do these skills for the first time or strengthen them if I had already done them before.”
