Cardiac Rehab Internship Essay

During this internship I had a variety of tasks that made me understand and develop my skills in cardiac rehab, stress testing, working at the hospital in the CVCU, and also talking to the patients in the hospital about coming to outpatient cardiac rehab. During my time in the outpatient cardiac rehab I have learned and perfected how to take a manual blood pressure, check heart rates, oxygen levels, and be able to teach and instruct our patients on healthy habits to ensure they are staying healthy and active outside the rehab facility. I learned to do a full disclosure on a patient, meaning to check their EKG, find out their max heart rates during exercise, and send a note to the doctor if anything abnormal should occur. I’ve learned to chart and tech

All these tests have different steps that you have to take in order to prepare and complete the test. I learned to explain some of the tests, prep the patients for an EKG, and start a test through the computer. Each test is thorough but entirely different, but what I found most important was the patient comes first always, and if you ever think something could be wrong you should always ask. For example, for a treadmill test you need to reach a specific heart rate, which is 85% of their max heart rate to get diagnostic results. If the patient is having chest pain, their blood pressure drops or skyrockets, and they have yet to reach the heart rate, you should stop the test. Patients come first, and if they are having difficulties you can always do another stress test down the road. Lastly, I worked at the CVCU unit at Oakwood hospital, this is where heart patients go right after surgery, still in a lot of pain and are in the healing process to be transferred to a regular