About Me
I am sophomore set to graduate as a part of the class of 2025. I am a Neuroscience major on the pre-med track. I chose this major to develop a basis in neuroscience to hopefully use moving forward on my aspired path of becoming a medical doctor who helps patients with neurological disorders every single day.
My Experiences and Skills
This was GCC being built in 2018. Visit our official website for more information: https://geistcommunitycenter.org/
I am a youth board leader at the Geist Community Center. This was a project run by local member of my community to create a building where all members of the community could come together develop relationships, strengthen bonds, and practice their faith openly. The building took a lot of effort and planning to be created. In just over a year we were able to raise over $500,000 towards the creation of the center. The building now operates successfully and has for over 2 years. It brings member of the community together, helps raise food and clothing for those in need, and serves as a mosque for muslims to practice their religion. Through this experience I learned so much about being a good team member, communicating effectively, and public speaking . These are skills that are essential in the field of medicine. Doctors must be able to work in teams with other physicians, nurses, and researchers patients. Beyond that doctors must be able to proficiently communicate to patients their thoughts and diagnoses. I believe that the communication and team building skills I developed from this experience will help me in my career down the line.
This is an image of what a chemistry recitation class at IUPUI looks like.
I am a Peer Leader for the chemistry department at IUPUI. I lead a chemistry C105 recitation with around 10 students every week where I help them practice and learn chemistry skills that they acquired from their lecture. This experience has helped me grow tremendously in my leadership skills. I am responsible for tutoring/guiding these students in my recitation and serving as their leader while they are in my class. I have developed great understanding of what it takes to be a leader and what a successful leadership experience looks like. This experience has showed me that I am somebody who very much enjoys helping others and seeing them succeed in something they struggled with to begin with. Leadership is a pivotal skill for an aspiring physician. Doctors are often leaders in their work environment and must be able to take charge in stressful situations. Patients look to their physicians for advice and guidance. Experience handling dynamics similar to this will help me moving forward.
This is an image of me (on the right) and my friend at an honors college peer mentor get together at the start of a new year
I am an Honors college peer mentor at IUPUI. This is a program started by the honors college that allows for the creation of a successful transition for incoming honors college students. I serve as a mentor for a number of mentees every semester who are just joining IUPUI and the honors college for the first time. This experience has again taught me so much about how to be a successful leader. Additionally it has taught me how to set a good example for others who may be looking up to me for advice or support. One on one communications skills are very important for an aspiring physician. They must sit with patients of all ages and be able to guide them towards maitniang their health. Experience as a leader is again very important in the field of medicine. This is why I believe serving as an honors peer mentor is going to help me develop skills that are benficial in my future career path.
This is an image of MyChart home screen where patient records are viewed and edited.
As an intern at the PARC research center at Eskenazi Hospital, part of my role is to manage and review patient records. When new patients arrive to the hospital, a lot of information is recorded by the doctors, nurses, and residents within the first two weeks. I read through doctors notes and patient visit files to ensure the personal and medical information listed about them and their treatment is entirely correct all throughout. I conduct this management using a program called MyChart through EPIC. This is a patient records/files program used by all hospitals and medical facilities across the United States. In my time at Eskenazi I gained tremendous experience using MyChart and can effectively use it for many purposes. Familiarity with the MyChart program is essential for a career in the medical field since it is widely used across medical facilities. My experience utilizing this program will be valuable for future roles where I will more than likely need to use it again.
As an intern at the PARC research center at Eskenazi Hospital, part of my role is to listen to patient therapy sessions and write a comprehensive transcript about what was said and determined. These are therapy sessions with patients who have been diagnosed with schizophrenia or a similar psychological disorder that results in psychosis. Through hours on hours of listening to therapy sessions, I have gained many valuable skills. One of the benefits of listening to therapy sessions extensively is that it has aided in the development of my attentive listening and proficient writing skills. I am able to listen very closely with my full attention and write about it effectively, getting the meaningful points across. In this time, I have also gained experience listening to patients and more importantly listening to doctors interact with patients. I have learned what kind of questions they ask patients and how they respond when asked a questions. This is all very valuable experience that I can use in my future as a medical professional.
Skills and Strengths
I believe that my strongest set of skills developed through these experiences are strong communication, organizational skills and attention to detail, and working well in a team. Through my past involvements I have believe I have seen great development in my communication. I have had to work with others for the large majority of important experiences in my life and have had the chance to grow as a communicator. More Specifically through my experience as a youth board leader at the Geist Community Center, I had to effectively communicate at multiple community wide fundraisers including public speaking in front of hundreds of people. Additionally I have had to work in teams in order to accomplish very large scale goals. I have learned so much about how to create a successful team environment and how to properly speak out and listen to others in a collaborative setting. Through these experiences I have also grown tremendously as a leader. A lot of these services require strong leadership skills and the ability to successfully mentor others.
I believe I have developed skills as a researcher. I have had to conduct extensive research on very complex and content dense topics in Neuroscience such as Major Depressive Disorder, the Hodgkin-Huxley equation, and Schizophrenia. I have been able to find controlled research/clinical trials and use the findings and results to make conclusions in research papers. I am able to find the information I am looking for very quickly, despite their being a very high volume to go through. I have also developed the skill of taking a large quantity of information and communicating the research in layman terms that are comprehensive and understandable to all. I have written numerous research papers consisting of abstracts, introductions, methods, data, analysis, and conclusions. I have been able to frequently do this very well using data that I acquired in laboratory as well as experiments/data found in databases online.
There are some areas where I need to continue to grow. On area I think I have a lot of room to grown in, is networking and putting myself out there. I think that I am a valuable member of any team I join and am passionate about. However, a lot of the time I spend my time working hard individually and don't make as many acquaintances as I could in the workplace. I could make it more clear to those around me how I could help them or what ways they can help me in my role. I could also be more vocal about what opportunities I would like to be a part of around my workplace and be more inquisitive about how I can get these opportunities. I think that if I was more vocal about myself and networked myself more it could benefit me in many ways in my internship and even beyond in the future.
As I first joined my internship, I was hoping to walk away with skills and experience that was valuable towards reaching my career goal of being a medical professional. I wanted skills that would help me get to medical school, be successful in medical school, and become a working doctor. As my internship comes to an end, I can confidently say I gained a lot of the skills and experiences I was looking for. I got to see real doctors interact with patients on a weekly basis. I heard so much patient communication as I watched therapy sessions. I was able to improve my attentive listening and writing skills as I listened to therapy sessions and created transcription documents. I was able to gain organizational skills as I managed patient information and files on MyChart. I also gained experience using a ubiquitous program that I used in medical facilities all over North America. Having experience with MyChart will more than likely come in handy as I find more work in medicine. I also gained important teamwork skills as a member of a group. This is especially beneficial because it was a member of a group at a hospital whose main concern was treating patients. Working alongside these kinds of people this early on my path in medicine was an invaluable experience.
Teamwork
These experiences have taught me so much about how to successfully work in a team and what a good team member looks like. I have learned first and foremost how important it is to communicate effectively as a member of a team. In order to be a positively impactful member of a team you must be able to listen and speak your mind effectively. These are skills I have been able to work on tremendously through these experiences. Additionally, I also was able to develop my problem-solving skills which I learned were very important in a team setting. Often in my experiences with professional teams, was their need for working out a solution as a group. A great team is able to communicate effectively and work out a solution to a problem efficiently.
In my time at my internship I feel like, I was a successful member of my team. I was able to assimilate myself in the system they had in place and ensure that my work was getting done consistently. I had to learn a lot about my team very quickly. This included, how they treat patients, how they get useful research, and how I would fit into their system. I also had to learn about the entire lower level of the hospital as a whole and all the great people that work together to make the PARC research center come together. I felt that I was able to understand my role rather quickly and begin working effectively within it.
My role as a member of the team was mainly behind the scenes. I was tasked with managing patient records and files on MyChart through EPIC, as well as listening to patient therapy sessions and creating comprehensive transcripts that make meaningful information more accessible to the researchers. A lot of my day to day included looking through doctors notes and patient files, as well as listening to therapy sessions and writing things down. A lot of this work is done best individually. This is all very important work that prevents the patient records and treatment files from being inconsistent or misreported. However, it involves minimal in person communication and teamwork. All the information is passed on through MyChart. I was a part of a number of monthly meetings where each patient is discussed in detail and different scores are given determining the patients improvement or lack thereof. The score is based on a number of factors that have been meticulously and thoroughly factored into the scale. I learned a lot about the patients and the disorders they were dealing with at these meetings. It was also my opportunity to learn about the team and my coworkers.