College interns trusted with meaningful work at Sentara

Imagine this. You’re born at Sentara Leigh Hospital and 19 years later you return to the labor and delivery unit as a summer intern to help improve patient experience.

“It’s funny because some of the people I work with knew the doctor who delivered me. They’ve been here 19 years and I’m like, ‘This is crazy,’” said Rylie Winston, an administrative intern at Sentara Leigh Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia. 

Winston, a sophomore at James Madison University, is one of 20 summer interns across Sentara who are spending eight to 12 weeks working in areas like administration, finance, information technology, health equity, and legal services. 

“Sentara has been really good about giving me hands-on experience and trusting me to do things,” said Winston. “They let me ask questions and they let me talk to patients which I love.” 

Winston uses an industry-standard tool to review patient surveys and feedback.

Winston has been working with the housekeeping team to look at data, gather patient feedback, identify patterns, and partner with leadership to resolve any issues raised by patients. 

“The work Rylie has done has absolutely impacted patient experience,” said Bailey Myers, senior director of administration at Sentara Leigh Hospital. “She’s been able to really dig into the data and help us make sense of it.”

Jacqueline Griffin, supervisor of housekeeping at Sentara Leigh Hospital, was working at the hospital when Rylie was born there 19 years ago and has worked closely with her throughout the internship. 

“Having Rylie here has been so helpful. She’s a big support for leaders. She’s worked with process improvement projects and helps in our weekly meetings,” said Griffin, who has worked at Sentara Leigh Hospital for 30 years.

At Sentara’s nearby corporate office in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Gunni Kamran interned with the legal services team to help assess how Sentara creates, manages, and safeguards important business agreements with vendors and consultants.  

Kamran proudly shows off his Sentara intern badge.

“I’ve been able to learn a lot about the contract lifecycle management scene,” said Kamran, a systems engineering major at the University of Virginia. 

“I’ve helped create a spreadsheet to understand what’s needed and not needed for contracts. It makes me feel really good to see people go in and turn the cell files red, green, or yellow. Like they’re actually adding onto something I helped create.” 

Alana Ibiezugbe, a health sciences major at James Madison University, shares the same excitement about her internship with Sentara’s health equity, diversity, and inclusion team.

Ibiezugbe helped coordinate with Sentara hospitals in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Woodbridge, Virginia, to support the Sentara Health Career Camps, which welcomed nearly 100 middle schoolers this summer.  

Stephanie Barnes (left), director of human resources at Sentara Northern Virginia Medical Center, and Ibiezugbe (right), with a fellow intern.

“Honestly, when I talk with my friends about internships, many of them feel like they’re just shadowing or doing busy work,” said Ibiezugbe. “With Sentara I got hands-on experience. I wasn’t just observing — I was leading, coordinating, and actually helping to shape the experience for students. I felt trusted and valued, which I think is rare for a lot of college internships.”

Alana Galbert, who graduated this past May from James Madison University, also interned with Sentara’s health equity, diversity, and inclusion team. 

“I’ve contributed to projects like the Sentara Mentorship Program and Sentara Youth Summit and have traveled to places like Richmond to co-facilitate listening sessions and leadership trainings,” said Galbert. “This has truly been a life-changing experience.” 

At Sentara’s clinical simulation lab in Chesapeake, Virginia, Hanna Smith got to see how clinical staff are trained and educated before they go into the hospitals to take care of patients.

“It’s like an exact hospital here. They have patient rooms with mannequins set up and they can run so many different scenarios,” said Smith, a sophomore at James Madison University. “They can make the mannequins cough, wheeze, and moan, and I just think it’s pretty interesting.” 

Smith shows how employees use this realistic mannequin arm to practice drawing blood from veins.

Ty Rodriguez, education specialist at the clinical simulation lab, said he wears many hats and was able to give a few of them to Smith. 

“Week-long projects are significantly shorter because we have Hanna,” said Rodriguez. “For example, we had two rooms full of cubicles that we tore down, unscrewed, and cleared up to make space for more training area. That wouldn’t have gotten done as quickly without Hanna.”

Smith’s biggest piece of advice for fellow interns is to say yes to every opportunity. 

“You’re only here for 6 to 8 weeks so definitely make the most of it. Like Ty will come up to me and ask, ‘Do you want to see how this works?’ and I could easily be like, ‘Oh, maybe another time.’ But no every single time, I'm just like, ‘Yes.’ In my free time I’ll also sit in on classes, like I've done an EKG class, a phlebotomy class, an IV class, just to name a few.”

Smith plans to apply to nursing school in December and hopes to be an oncology nurse one day. She said it’s inspiring to work with nurse educators who have been in the field for decades. 

“It’s giving me that motivation of, ‘I'm in the right field and I want to pursue this further.’ Before I was 95% sure and now I’m a 100% sure.”

To search for current internships at Sentara, please visit sentaracareers.com.