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Sports Medicine interns Alison Shurtleff and Robin Ward learn about training by treating UCLA ath

For seniors who applied to medical schools earlier this academic year, all that remains is to wait and see whether their hard work over the last four years of college will pay off.

Denise Law, a fourth-year physiological sciences student who has been accepted to medical school, has already had a lot of firsthand experience in the health care field. Law has been participating in the UCLA Sports Medicine Internship program for three years now.

“(The internship) is really one of the big things that made me decide that I wanted to pursue an M.D.,” Law said.

Throughout the three-year program, students learn about technical methods firsthand by treating athletes while away at games or after practices.

Law, who played sports in high school and has always had an interest in medicine, looks back on the program fondly in terms of what she has accomplished.

“I was kind of skeptical when I first started, but looking back now, it is a very amazing program in terms of what you can get out of it and what you can give back to the school,” she said.

Much of the first year of the program is devoted to learning rehabilitation techniques, and how to actually use medical equipment such as ultrasound and electrical stimulation in order to give students the knowledge they will need to practice on the field or in the training room.

The second and third years are when the interns are actually able to work with an assigned athletic team and take charge of the team’s health.

“Whenever they are injured or have something to complain about, they will come to the student trainer and we learn how to do evaluations to figure out what we think is wrong with the athletes, and then come up with ideas on how to treat that and make them better,” Law said.

Law, who has also volunteered in various medical facilities, has found that the sports medicine internship offers benefits and rewards not fulfilled in other endeavors.

“I have volunteered at hospitals and I have volunteered in doctors’ offices and worked front desks in doctors’ offices, and nowhere else can you get the hands-on experience of being able to evaluate, treat and rehabilitate a person or patient,” Law said.

However, there are some negative aspects to the program. First-year interns work about 10 to 15 hours a week, while second and third-year interns work around 25 to 40 hours a week, depending on the athletic team that they are assigned to and their needs.

“I think that the long hours, especially because it is not a class and because we do not really get paid, turns a lot of people off. It is really hard because you have to have a lot of time management skills,” Law said.

Even though the interns sometimes have to work long hours and can be stuck doing grunt work like filling ice bags for athletes or handing out water, Law further emphasizes the positive attributes of the internship.

“If you keep that in the big picture of ‘This is what I want to learn from the program,’ then it turns out to be a very positive thing. ... It requires a lot of self-motivation,” she said.

Later in the program, interns are allowed to travel with teams by themselves and have to make decisions by themselves.

“I have to make on-the-spot decisions about like if the athletes are OK to play. ... So I feel really prepared to become a clinical doctor,” Law said.

Law especially likes that the program gives students real responsibilities and a way to learn how to apply these techniques in the real world.

She explained how doctors often must consider and decide whether an athlete is able to go back onto the field or if it is unsafe to do so.

“The biggest difference between the Sports Medicine Internship program and other internships, like in doctors’ offices and physical therapy clinics, is the availability of hands-on experience to our trainers. ... We need them to provide care to our athletes,” said Mike Dillon, a UCLA athletic trainer.

Students also work with staff trainers, family practice doctors, nutritionists, orthopedists and other professional health care givers to help develop their skills and gain knowledge about the field.

In order to gain acceptance to this program, students must participate in an observation period, involving interviews and staff evaluations, followed by a probationary period once they have been accepted to the program, where they must go through more evaluations and maintain a 2.5 GPA. Once interns have been completed the probationary quarter, they go on to a “professional phase.”

The rest of the three-year program is devoted to developing the interns’ skills and knowledge by exposing them to different experiences that will allow them to prepare for future careers in the health care field.

Interns are required to take two academic courses through UCLA Extension, but are also exposed to health care practices by participating in sessions taught by staff members and trainers, as well as working with various UCLA athletes and sports teams.

Although students do not get course credit for the internship, second and third-year interns receive a stipend for their work.

Currently, there are 47 interns participating in the UCLA Sports Medicine Internship, and around 20 new interns are accepted each year.

The Sports Medicine Internship is only one of the numerous, diverse internships students can students can become involved with at UCLA, ranging from geoscience to engineering, from medicine to computer technologies and onwards.

Juniors or seniors have the option of receiving credit for internships, but the internship must be validated and they must be in good academic standing.

Students must also write weekly journal entries as well as a final research paper at the end of the quarter.

Students are not required to receive credit for working in internships, but it is always an option.

“It is up to students to apply for credit,” said Dario Bravo, internship and study abroad services manager for the UCLA Career Center.

With the many different internships available, students can often find an internship that suits their interests and career pursuits.

“I feel like I actually had an impact in college rather than just going through four years doing nothing. I worked in the lab and I tutor, and all of those things are great, but I think that the time and effort you put into this program is definitely worthwhile,” Law said.