CENTREVILLE &045; Their excitement is almost as contagious as the diseases the Field Memorial Community Hospital interns are learning to treat.

The heart, the lungs, the brain &045; everything that’s in the body or affecting the body is interesting to Steve Agans and Dan Mantuani &045; everything, that is, except the kidney.

&uot;The kidney’s just not very exciting,&uot; Agans said. &uot;But there’s so much else out there and I haven’t been exposed to it.&uot;

Exposure is one of the main reasons the third-year Tulane University medical students are working at the hospital and Field Clinic in Centreville this summer.

So far, they’ve spent three weeks of their six-week internship in the family medicine field participating in surgeries, doing clinic work, following doctors and working in the emergency room.

&uot;They let us do so much,&uot; Agans said. &uot;They teach you what to look for. We learn all these diseases in college, but what’s the common cold look like? Here you see it.&uot;

The Centreville internship is a highly coveted gig, the students said, because interns get to do such a variety of things.

&uot;We have a lot of classmates really jealous of us right now,&uot; Mantuani said. &uot;It has such a good reputation.&uot;

Med school friends, Agans, 26, and Mantuani, 29, had their eyes on Field Hospital and grabbed the slots as soon as they became available.

The hospital is their first venture away from the textbook to get face to face time with the patients &045; something that has them downright giddy.

&uot;We are scrubbing in, we are in the operating room poking around,&uot; Agans said. &uot;We’ve been allowed to make patient contacts, do preliminary patient care, start (IV) lines and take vital signs. These are things we’ve never had a chance to do. I’ve seen some pretty cool stuff.&uot;

The interns start work at 7 a.m. and end at midnight in the ER. They sleep in a hospital bed in a clinic room set aside for them.

&uot;I work 18 hours a day, 14 days a week &045; and I love it,&uot; Agans said.

The students have worked with all three of the clinic’s doctors but work most closely with Dr. Rich Field III.

After this internship, the students will begin other rotations in surgery, internal medicine and obstetrics at other hospitals.

Agans, from Seattle, Wash., was a biochemistry and theater major at Whitman College in Washington.

Mantuani is from Colorado and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado in Southeast Asian studies.