{"id":21571,"date":"2025-07-04T18:59:28","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T18:59:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/students-thrive-in-health-care-internship-at-southwest-health-system\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:07:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:07:22","slug":"students-thrive-in-health-care-internship-at-southwest-health-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/students-thrive-in-health-care-internship-at-southwest-health-system\/","title":{"rendered":"Students thrive in health care internship at Southwest Health System"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ten
Ten students have been learning more about the medical field during Southwest Health System\u2019s 2025 summer internship. Back row, left to right: Kale Gates (Dolores), Liam Tarpey (Dolores), Marcuz Penafie (Montezuma-Cortez), Ryne Neiman (Durango), Josephine Phare (Durango). Bottom row, left to right: Amy McCourt (inpatient coordinator at SHS), Maddison Daves (Mancos), Eva Casey (Mancos), Peyton Benally (MCHS), Alexandria Greene (MCHS), Meghan Higman (director of Inpatient Services and Education at SHS). Not pictured: Sophia Dainty-Guilfoyle (Durango). (Meghan Higman\/Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

A group of high school students from across the region is gaining valuable health care experience through a summer internship at Southwest Health System.<\/p>\n

Students from high schools in Montezuma County, and Durango, are taking part in a month of immersive rotations to explore medical careers. This summer\u2019s interns are Liam Tarpey (Dolores), Kale Gates (Dolores), Marcuz Penafie (Montezuma-Cortez), Josephine Phare (Durango), Rynie Neiman (Durango), Maddison Daves (Mancos), Peyton Benally (MCHS), Eva Casey (Mancos), Sophia Dainty-Guilfoyle (Durango) and Alexandria Greene (MCHS).<\/p>\n

The internship offers rotations based on student interests, while exposing students to departments they may not be as familiar with to broaden their horizons. Students have had the opportunity to work in radiology, the operating room and physical therapy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe started in 2013 and the whole intent was to really give an opportunity to explore health professions,\u201d Meghan Higman, director of inpatient services and education, told The<\/em> Journal<\/em>. \u201cI also purposely place people in departments that maybe not be an area of interest, because I think, you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know. So, it\u2019s really meant to get full 360 of health career professions as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some students discovered new interests. Casey said she was initially interested in imaging but now is interested in other areas.<\/p>\n

The fast-paced environment and fields challenged initial assumptions and allowed students to learn more about the careers they are interested in.<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned a lot about physical therapy and I thought it was a lot of fun,\u201d Gates said. \u201cLike helping people whenever they need it, after surgery or after they\u2019re in a rough time, you can help them, and that\u2019s really rewarding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neiman noted how valuable the experience has been, especially with limited opportunities in Durango. Durango\u2019s hospital doesn\u2019t don\u2019t take interns or clinical workers under 18 years old.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to pinpoint a favorite part, just because I think the experience is so valuable, especially with companies like this being somewhat limited in Durango,\u201d Neiman said. \u201cI think it\u2019s really great to see a day in the life and everything that\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weekly Thursday sessions, lasting four hours, feature hands-on training in IVs, tourniquets, the LUCAS device, helipad visits and CPR certification, with recent sessions including voice and attention exercises led by specialists. Shifts range from two to four hours daily, working in rotations.<\/p>\n

The selection process for the internship required essays, recommendation letters, interviews, drug tests, background checks, TB tests and new employee orientation, mirroring hospital staff onboarding.<\/p>\n

The interns urged other students to apply, highlighting the program\u2019s eye-opening nature and unique opportunity to test medical career paths before college.<\/p>\n

\u201cI say go for it because this is really like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, or it feels like it,\u201d Benally said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Program has students from across Montezuma County and Durango<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,155,28,60,29,210],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-21571","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-education","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-southwest-health-system"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21571"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21571\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77366,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21571\/revisions\/77366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21571"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=21571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}