Centre Careers: Pre-med student’s career trajectory guided by summer internships

In less than four years, Nicole Batista has gone from a high school student dreaming of a career in health care to a college senior on a pre-med track with hours of experience in hospitals and clinics from New York City to Mexico.

Since she joined Centre College through the Grissom Scholars program, Batista, class of 2025, has taken part in the Summer Health Professionals Education Program and completed internships at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York and at Clinica De Merida in Merida, Mexico.

She was among scores of Centre students who shared information about their internship experiences with fellow students, faculty and staff at a showcase on campus.

For Batista, her internship experiences have not only reaffirmed her dreams of becoming a doctor but brought those dreams closer to becoming reality.

“My high school in the Bronx, New York, required us to complete a project of what we wanted to do in the future,” said Batista. That experience shadowing a doctor in a New York hospital changed the trajectory of her life.

“I fell in love with the person that I was when I was in that space, and that's when I knew that I was probably destined to study medicine,” she said.

That emotional charge was present again this summer as she took part in the Summer Undergraduate Mentorship Program (SUMP) of the Hispanic Center of Excellence at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and completed a second internship at Clinica De Merida.

“It was super exciting,” Batista said of her time at Albert Einstein College of Medicine. “Being there didn’t feel like work. … I just felt like this is where I belong, and this is what I'm going into. Honestly, it felt like it was a life changing experience for me.”

"I feel like every medical internship that I've done has just reminded me that this is what I want to do. It’s what I’m passionate about." 

It’s not the first transformative experience for the New York native. In part, her desire to pursue medicine as a career can be traced back to her experiences as a caregiver after both parents suffered strokes. That, along with her experiences at Clinica de Merida, where patients with critical injuries or shock are stabilized and treated before being transferred to other departments, have led her to pursue neurology as a career path.

“I want to be a neurologist,” she said. “I want to see how the brain works and what’s happening in the brain to cause these individuals to have these symptoms.”

Batista’s internship experiences played a large role in helping her narrow her focus to the brain. At the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, she was able to work with patients while conducting research and presenting her findings. She also had the opportunity to shadow physicians in the pediatric, emergency operating room and neurology and stroke departments.

“I feel like every medical internship that I've done has just reminded me that this is what I want to do,” she said. “It’s what I’m passionate about.”

To learn more about internship opportunities at Centre College, visit the Center for Career and Professional Development.