Externship

I ran into an unexpexted speed bump on the path to externship. I needed my immunization records in order to start. Unfortunately, my immunization records seem to have been misplaced in one of the moves and the only way to obtain immunization records is to get them from the place where they were done. Of course, schools are now required to keep full immunization records on all their students so I've been told a million times to just contact my high school, but I was homeschooled K-12 so I tell them I already asked my mom... While we know that most of my immunizations were done at Maine Medical Center, some were done at the York County WIC clinic and I might have had a booster shot at Kaiser Permanente in North Carolina, so getting records from each place would take quite an effort and quite some time to do. And even if I could get all my records, I know I never got the varicella (chicken pox) vaccination because it wasn't available when I was a kid so I actually had the chicken pox. It was starting to look like I might have to just get the immunizations again (YIKES!), which could pose a problem since I'm breastfeeding and Audrey hasn't had her immunizations yet, but I found out that the Health Department could draw blood for Titers testing. Titers testing is a test to check for specific antibodies in the blood. It can be used to determine whether you have had certain immunizations. After quite a run-around, I finally got the blood drawn for testing.

The morning of June 2nd, I got up bright and early, got my scrubs on, nursed Audrey, double-checked that I had all the stuff needed for pumping and all the paperwork requested (drug screening, background check, PPD skin test results and immunization records) and drove thirty minutes to St Petersburg General Hospital for orientation. After taking a really horrible ID badge picture, I sat through seven and a half hours of orientation, all the while getting more excited to be working there.

After orientation, I had another half hour so I decided to find the echo lab and introduce myself. As soon as I said who I was and that I was the student from Sanford-Brown Institute, I saw no recognition on the face of the head echo tech, Chris. She had no idea I was coming! She checked her messages to see if somehow she was just left out of the loop, but found nothing. We called Tom, the clinical director at Sanford-Brown, to find out what was going on. Turns out, he had asked Chris three months ago about possibly taking a student in June. Since then, he had not been able to get in direct contact with the imaging department's director but had previously managed to get a general ultrasound student approved. As the date drew closer, he confirmed that I was coming on June 2nd - but with the wrong person. He confirmed with the general ultrasound head tech! Chris said she would try to get approval for me from the department director but until then, obviously, I couldn't start. I got word the next day that the department director would not approve a new echo student. So I do not have an externship site. I'm in education limbo. It's very frustrating since everything was starting to move forward again and has now come to a grinding halt.