Health City Cayman Islands is excited to welcome sixteen Caymanian interns into its inaugural internship program of which 6 commenced their internship program this week. Councillor Winston Connolly from the Ministry of Education was on hand to welcome the first group.

Health City’s first set of internships are primarily with a medical focus, with fourteen high school and university students gaining exposure to a wide range of medical specialities, while two students will gain valuable insight into maintenance/building operations and marketing. The internships vary from two weeks to two months.

Dr Chandy Abraham, Medical and Facility Director at Health City said the exposure the students gain will greatly assist the young people in deciding which spheres of medicine they may wish to specialise in.

“We offer our internships to give students a taste of the various areas of the medical fields in which we specialise,” he said. “These include cardiac surgery, cardiology, orthopaedics, pulmonary and paediatric endocrinology. It is a broad spectrum and we are sure the students will enjoy the variety of subject matter we are able to show them.”

Dr Chandy said it is Health City’s intention to provide interns first-hand experience within the hospital to help them make a decision if medicine is a field they would like to pursue further.

“Our ultimate goal is to have one third of all medical staff be Caymanian in the coming decade,” he said. “We hope that internships will inspire future careers.”

Gene Thompson said, “Health City is delighted to be working with Minister of Education Ms Tara Rivers and Mr Winston Connolly, Councillor to the Ministry of Education. Both ministries have been very supportive and instrumental with the development of this programme.

“Honourable Tara Rivers, Councillor Connolly and the ministry have confirmed they will continue to support and play a vital role in helping Health City Cayman Islands achieve its goal of having one hundred interns in the calendar year of 2015. “We will be working diligently in partnership with the Ministry of Education to see this commitment through,” Mr Thompson said.

Councillor Connolly concluded his visit by stating “On behalf of the Minister of Education and the entire Ministry, we are excited about this inaugural cohort and trust that these young Caymanians will seize this opportunity to educate themselves and help form their career decisions. We congratulate Health City for their vision and believe that this will be a mutually beneficial exercise.”