Scripps’ commitment to ongoing learning and health care excellence extends beyond our organization. Our clinical, non-clinical and high school internship programs help promote health care careers to a new generation, shape the future workforce and develop future leaders in our community. Opportunities include:
Scripps and the health career pipeline project known as the Health and Science Pipeline Initiative (HASPI) began a partnership in 2007 to create worksite and learning opportunities for high school students who have an interest in healthcare. This five-week internship program brings students from around the county into our doors to become more educated about healthcare careers.
UC High School and Scripps have a formal partnership to create work-site exposure and learning opportunities for students interested in health care careers. Students shadow various health care professionals, visiting three different departments during their 12-week internship.
Watch Our Featured Video | High School Exploration Internship Testimonials
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OLIVIA STEPHENS: My most memorable experience would be when I was in the ICU, I met the father of a young girl who was currently a patient, and she was suffering from seizures caused by bacteria in her brain. And I got to hear about her recovery as I progressed in the weeks because I would see her father, and he would tell me about how she was doing. And it was really cool to hear about how she was recovering and how the scrips team helped to make her better.
AZUL MARMOLEJO RUBIO: Watching a natural delivery-- even though there were some complications like the baby had the cord around her neck, and difficulties in trying to get her out, at the end, the mom and the baby were safe and healthy. And this moment was very eye-opening because I got to see a lot of death situations in the hospital in my previous weeks, and here, I got to see a new life begin.
SONIA BURNS: I was in the operating room and I got to see the da Vinci machine, which is kind of like the surgeon controls a robot, almost. And they were able to remove a cancerous colon without making a huge incision for the patient, so it led to a shorter recovery time. And it was also really cool to watch.
JOSEPH COLARUSSO: On my second day, I was in the emergency room with respiratory therapy, and an elderly woman was brought in after she went into cardiac arrest. And it was really impressive to see how quickly everyone in the ER responded and how well they worked together. And what made it so memorable, also, was that I got to watch them perform CPR on her. And the next couple of days, I got to see her slowly recover in the ICU.
LEANNE LOCANO: When I got to witness a colectomy surgery, which was a removal of a colon, it was amazing to see it because afterwards, after they extracted the colon, the surgeon actually let me hold it. And I just remember thinking, wow, I'm holding a human organ in my hand. And it was so interesting to see how these medical professionals came together to perform a successful surgery at the same time of being able to educate me on what exactly they were doing, and the anatomy, and the case of the person.
ANNA BRADLEY: When a patient's blood pressure dropped and they had to call a rapid response team in and about 15 nurses and doctors had to rush in to the room to solve the problem-- but it was interesting how they could stay calm and composed while they were doing their job very well.
NITHYASREE PALAKODETY: When I got to watch a bronchoscopy and they used cryotherapy, which is really cool to watch. And I was also told that sometimes, the nurses go through full rotations-- or nurses in training-- and they still don't get to watch one of those, so that was cool.
DANQI JASMINE ZHANG: When a code blue was called in the ER and I went down there to watch-- so they were starting CPR on the patient, who is this 95-year-old woman. And after a while, they talked to the daughter and they decide that the best choice, as well as what the patient would have wanted, is to just let her go. So that was obviously a very difficult decision for the daughter to make, but the doctors and the social worker who came by afterwards really helped her accept that it was time to let her mom go. And I think that really defines healthcare because it's not just about treating patients, but also about supporting the family through a difficult time.
ELIZABETH FARRENKOPF: Something that I didn't know about healthcare was all the different types of roles that come into play at the hospital. Typically at a hospital, you kind of think there's mainly just doctors and nurses. But there's actually a lot more roles that are really essential such as surgical techs, or different types of readers, and they all come together and collaborate as one.
ASHLEY HOBBIE: The amount of paths that nurses can take after they get their nursing degree. So there's labor and delivery. There's the operating room. There's ER and trauma, and there's so much you could do with that one nursing degree, and so many paths you could take that fit your specific interests. And I think that's a really cool part of the healthcare system.
FERNANDO RAMIREZ: That there is a lot of very fluid interactions between all departments. You could be a PT and work with an RN in a completely different building, and we still care for the same patient.
NEAAM DAWOOD: I didn't know how much of cooperation the whole hospital works together. It was crazy-- from a patient that's in need of Intense Care can go from the trauma bay in the ED to the ICU, to the trauma observation. And all those levels, they all work together to help the patient get better, which shows the level of cooperation the whole hospital has, and it's great.
MADELEINE WARD: It's not always about saving the patient. It's oftentimes about just caring for the patient and making them as comfortable as you can. Before, I always thought healthcare was a solution to every problem. But I definitely realized that doctors have the same boundaries that everyone else in the world have, so there's not always a certain solution that they can find to every problem.
AIDEN BLISS: Specifically, the jobs of nurses and all the things that they have to do, and the amount of patient care that they have and are tasked with, it definitely confirmed to me that I do not want to go into nursing and definitely want to go to med school.
ELIZABETH PENCE: Communication is a key role not only in doctors, but as well as the other medical professionals, because it's the best when determining a solution to a problem that-- whatever problem they're facing, especially if the problem involves a patient's health.
ISABELLA POISFUSS: One thing that I learned from this experience was a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into this. I didn't really fully comprehend the administration levels in the hospital. And every morning, there's a safety call at 900 AM, and I got to listen in on that and some meetings. So seeing not only the patient care, but also some of the behind-the-scenes stuff was really interesting.
CLARE URBANIC: I have a newfound respect for pharmacists. In my pharmacy rotation, I was able to shadow a lot of different pharmacists and the jobs that they would complete around the hospital. And it was interesting because I hadn't really known that pharmacists cover as much as they do, from making sure that medications are actually covering what the patient needs, making sure they're not on too many antibiotics, or on enough antibiotics. And it's something that I think is really undervalued in healthcare right now, and something that I think the general public doesn't really get exposure to.
ARIC CARIAGA: The rehab services-- because it takes a lot of patience to work with the patients that they see. And also, it's very important to them that they build a certain degree of trust with the patients, that they're able to work on a more intimate level than the nurses would.
LAUREN NGUYEN: The techs and generals, I respect way more now, especially the pharmacy techs because they are doing most of the manual, physical work, compared to the doctors-- even the nurses do-- but the techs, especially in the pharmacy, they're doing so much more work. They're filling medication, they're doing all that while the pharmacists are verifying what they're doing.
ZASHA ABIGAIL ZUNIGA: Physical therapists-- I realize how recovery is very important for patients. And recovery takes a lot of time, a lot of patience, and a lot of constant practice. And the perseverance that physical therapists exhibit just to help patients recover deserve more respect.
ALONDRA VALDEZ MORALES: It would definitely have to be nurses-- the amount of passion and hard work they put into the good of their patient is truly amazing, and it's something that not anybody can do. They have so much work to do-- so much charting, to giving the medications on time, and they're always constantly moving around. And of course, their shifts are 12 hours and they're just super strong.
SARAH WOODWARD: CNAs, the Nursing Assistants-- they work so hard every day. They have a lot of patients and they do all of the dirty work. They change patients' beds. They change patients' diapers. They keep track of how much they eat and their food. They even started transporting them-- that's a new thing that they're doing now. And they worked really hard.
JACLYN HA: Actually, speech language pathologists-- I actually didn't know a lot about this profession before, and when I first heard the name, I only assumed that they deal with only voice and swallowing, the things like sore throat or minor problems like hoarse voice. But it's actually that they deal with so much more. They deal with everything in the neck and above. So they'll not only deal with the minor health problems, but they'll also deal with things like pneumonia, strengthening your vocal cords. They also deal with head and neck cancers. They're also dealing with brain traumas, strokes, Parkinson's, and other diseases that actually deal with your cognitive and your motor voices.
MICAELA DOWE: For doctors because with every patient they see, they have to be very knowledgeable to answer questions and to do a lot of outside research before they see the patient so that they completely understand the symptoms, or whatever problems are being presented at that time, and to ensure that every treatment option is tailored specifically for the patient.
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High school students in northern San Diego County learn side-by-side with Scripps emergency room physicians and other medical professionals. Students receive leadership mentorship and complete a service project that satisfies high school requirements.
Scripps partners with many schools to provide onsite training for students interested in Nursing, Allied Health, Pharmacy, Physical/Occupational Therapy, Social Work and Dietary and Health Information Management. We host approximately 2,000 students per year.
We understand that the transition from nursing student to professional nurse is both exciting and challenging, so we provide a supportive, structured environment to facilitate this adjustment. That includes quality programs, like our New Graduate RN Residency Program, that provide nursing students with the education, skills and emotional support needed to enter clinical practice as confident, well-prepared nurses.
At Scripps, volunteering isn’t just for the young; it’s also for the young at heart. Scripps has volunteers as young as 15 and many who are more than 80 years old, donating their time to welcome guests, create crafts for patients, escort their furry friends through the canine therapy program, work in the gift shop and so much more.
Last year, our 2,142 volunteers contributed a total of 193,779 hours of their time at Scripps, often working side-by-side with our employees and physicians.
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