For Ada’s Taylor Stueness, health care runs in the family.
“My grandma, my aunts and a couple of my cousins have been nurses,” she said.
So when Taylor learned about a local internship at Essentia Health-Ada from her school counselor, Allie Lien, she jumped at the chance to explore her own path in health care.
“It sounded like a good learning opportunity,” explained Taylor, who will be a senior at Ada-Borup-West High School.
The summer internship program is supported by a longstanding grant partnership with the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Hospital Association. Applicants must be entering their senior year of high school and have an interest in health care. They must commit to working at least 30 hours a week for a minimum of six weeks.
“As a critical access hospital, we can host an intern through this program,” explained Erin Stoltman, administrator at Essentia Health-Ada. “After pausing program participation for a few summers, we were excited to bring this back to our local hospital and clinic.”
Taylor’s internship began June 16 and was overseen by Katie Vasey, community health specialist at Essentia.
“I had a lot of fun working with Taylor,” said Vasey. “She worked hard on a variety of community health initiatives focused on nutrition and physical activity and put in 37 hours of volunteering on behalf of Essentia.”
Taylor was involved with multiple projects including:
- Helping organizations sign up for Resourceful, a public resource directory connecting community members with thousands of verified programs providing free and reduced-cost services.
- Working on a community initiative in partnership with the Statewide Health Improvement Partnership (SHIP) and Norman-Mahnomen Public Health to promote “Healthy Approved Meals” alongside area restaurants.
- Volunteering with the Halstad Summer Recreation program, which received a $2,500 grant from Essentia Health.
- Presenting on the community health needs assessment (CHNA) survey to the Ada city council.
Over the course of her internship, Taylor also spent 91 hours job shadowing several different departments at the Ada hospital and clinic, as well as at Essentia hospitals in Fargo and Detroit Lakes. This included radiology, an area of particular interest for Taylor.
“I like looking at bone anatomy and understanding how all of that works,” she said.
Of her experience, Taylor said she loved her internship and enjoyed the job shadows the most, including working with local radiology tech manager Andrew Tritz.
“I liked learning about what each department does because they do more than what you think,” she explained.
Staff celebrated Taylor over pizza on Thursday, Aug. 7, the last day of her internship.
“We really enjoyed having Taylor as part of our team and we would love to welcome her back in the future!” said Stoltman.
“This internship is great because it gives students a taste of rural medicine,” added Vasey. “I wish I had something like this in high school. I knew I wanted to help people, but I didn’t know what that looked like. This internship can help students find the right fit.”
Taylor looks forward to playing volleyball this fall and narrowing down what she wants to do with radiology.
“My top pick right now are ultrasounds,” she said.
Taylor plans on attending Northland Community and Technical College in East Grand Forks to pursue an associate degree in applied science in radiologic technology and take advantage of the Frandsen Foundation Scholarship.