Hi, my name is Amanda Rourke ‘22 and I’m a senior majoring in biochemistry and public health at Nazareth College. I am originally from Akwesasne N.Y., which is located in upstate N.Y., along the Canadian Border and I came to Naz in 2018. I am the President of Dare2Dance and a student ambassador for the admissions office.

This was one of the outreach nurses I worked with at the clinic. Her name is Diana Larock and she was important to me because she was the one I most shadowed under with wound care and home visits.

My public health advisor directed me to an internship right in my hometown, which is known as the Saint Regis Mohawk Health Services. In addition, with the use of my SPARK Grant, I would like to thank my career coach Josh Baruoth, who always met with me whenever I had questions, and helped me make the most of the SPARK Grant that Nazareth offers. This really impacted me because I got another opportunity to use my grant as a junior. Due to Covid, I wasn’t able to use my grant for a trip that I had planned for Vancouver. However, when Josh told me I had another chance, it truly was such a great experience using this grant. It allowed me to look at different career paths and helped prepare me for the future. 

This photo was with a patient who was entered into a drawing for receiving their vaccine. I had the opportunity to help with this promotion of encouraging everyone in the community to get vaccinated.

At my internship I was able to experience hands-on work within the healthcare system such as doing wound care on patients, home visits with diabetic instruments for patients, assisting the lab technicians and medication deliveries, and sterilizing instruments with autoclaves. In addition, I had a great experience working in the vaccination covid-19 clinics and was given a research project by the assistant health director and head licensed nurse practitioner in doing data analytics for women patients who received the vaccine and how it affects them after certain scenarios. 

This was my supervisor for my internship Theresa Gardner, who is the supervisor of the outreach program and an licensed nurse practitioner.

I was very fortunate that I had the opportunity to work in my community back home, especially as a Native American student. In relation to all of my school work and studying up until now, it was a crucial part in helping me understand and create a future employment path on what I may want to do in the future. My word of advice for any students thinking about doing an internship whether it’s for your major or not, just go for it. Sometimes new challenges in your life can be seen as a great opportunity!

This was one of my patients that I had the opportunity to work on for wound care. I would visit him weekly and work on anything that had to be wrapped up. He was a very kind, and respectable elder on the reservation, who was one of the chiefs at one point in the tribe and was a pleasure to work with.