Internship/Volunteering at Cedars-Sinai

I decided to come to LA this summer not only to hang out with Linds, Beej, and Puentes, which of course is a good enough reason in itself, but also to get a volunteer position at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center! Cedars is famed as one of the most prominent hospitals in the country, (maybe even the world), and it is also the choice hospital of many celebrities. I haven't seen any yet, but even if I did I wouldn't be allowed to tell anyone. The volunteer coordinators emphasized confidentiality especially strongly during orientation. The departments I was lucky enough to find a place in were the NICU for three days a week and the neurosurgery department for the other two days a week. I don't seem to be doing a ton of volunteer work, mainly I just get to shadow the physicians. In neurosurgery, I help with office work for part of the time, which consists of mailing off patient's medical imaging scans back to them. Then I shadow Dr. Danielpour, the pediatric neurosurgeon, as he visits patients in the clinic. Most of the cases he deals with are hydrocephalus shunts but there a wide range of interesting cases.
In the NICU, I go on rounds with the attending physician and the residents, which is actually really cool because I get to see how things start out once you become a resident. The residents are all really friendly and helpful whenever I have questions about anything. We end up rounding for about 2 hours, visiting all the babies that are assigned to their team. All the cases are really sad, as these babies have a lot of problems, but it's cool to see how the residents solve the problems and seek help from Dr. Puri, who has been their attending physician these last couple weeks. After rounds, there are usually lectures for the residents with different NICU/pediatric themes that I go to as well. Other random things I've been able to do are watch a procedure to deal with a pneumothorax, observe a C-section, and learn what to do in a code blue situation by role-playing. It's been a lot of fun so far! I'm really glad I was able to get these positions. Even though a lot of it is over my head, I've learned a lot and hope to continue learning over these next few weeks.