My Internship

The Social Determinants of Health Team at Eskenazi Health aims to decrease health inhibiting factors such as food insecurity, diaper need, and transportation by making resources more accessible. The Crooked Creek Food Pantry is available for use to every patient at Eskenazi Pecar Clinic and the surrounding area. Over the course of my internship, I have surveyed the very culturally diverse patients at Pecar Clinic about their food preferences. Over 300 surveys have been collected and recorded. This data will be used to procure additional food options that suit the interest of those who use Cooked Creek Food Pantry. As of now, the food preference survey is available in both English and Spanish, but three additional languages are being approved to make the process of surveying different demographics easier. We are also now in the process of trying to find an international grocery store to partner with in order to fulfill the wants of our patients.

My Role

I am currenlty a memeber at Eskinazi, working with Dr. Reinoso to make Crooked Creek Food Panrty more culturaly taylored. I do this by going to Pecar Clininc 2-3 times a week and screening the patients for food insecurity. I conduct a survey over what specific foods they would like to recive from the food pantry if they are food insecure or already use the food panrty. I also provide the pateints with addition information and services that could help with whatever they may need. We are at a point where we have collected almost enough surveys and are planning to meet and negatiate with a local hispanic supermarket to supply and deliver food to Crooked Creek Food Pantry. I am also working with a research team to start screening patients over matters such as domestic violence, substance abuse, and other sensitive topics in order to advocate for a change in the way providers give care. The Fresh Market right outside Eskinazi Hospital will be having a grand opening soon and afterwards I will spend some time working there as well. This work provides people with access to healthy and fresh foods which is a major social determinant of health and can prevent overnutrition and obesity.

Learning and Skills

I am very confident in my abilities to adapt and apply previously understood information, concepts, experiences, qualitative and quantitative techniques gained in one situation to new situations to solve problems or explore issues as well as work independently and only ask for help when needed. Some skills I will continue to work in include accepting challanges and problems even if I am likely to fail and keeping my learning in goals in mind as I work. I am learning so many knew things and sometimes it is hard to keep my initial goals in mind, but I also think goals can shift and grow as you learn. I plan to improve my ability to accept challanges even if I think I could fail by ponvincing myself with all of the benefits I could experince by doing a specific project.

The work I have been able to accomplish while interning at Eskenazi Health has not only informed pateints about the resources avaible to them, but also taken their wants and needs into account in order to culturally tailor the Crooked Creek Food Pantry. 

The Workplace

Almost everyone I have met so far in this intership just absolutly loves what they do. They are so passionate and so excited about their work that it's almost impossible to not feel excited with them. There is so much collaberation and sharing of knowledge. I hope that I feel as passionate about my work and job as the people I have met through this internship. I also hope I am surrounded with like-minded colleges who offer guidence and accept it as well. Right now it feels like I would not mind working under Dr. Reinoso forever. I would love to grow as a professional and teammate in a clinical or research setting.

It has been very interesting and valuable to know more about the lives of not only the employees, but also the patients I interact with. A lot deal with many hardships that I have never faced, so I am filled with empathy quite often. I’ve known about the effects poverty and discrimination can have on health, physically see the people it effects so often is really eye-opening.

Success and Challenges

A few times I have felt successful at my intership include being able to adequately answer questions in spanish (most of the patients are Spanish-Speaking) and collecting a good amount of surveys so that we are now able to use the data we have collected to culturaly taylor our food pantry. 

The most challanging parts of my experinece have been being faced with a pateint who needs additonal resouces who I am unable to help. A lot of the time these issues are related to transportation and no one at the clinic really knows what to do for these cases. It can be hard to hear someone talk about stuggles they are having and not know what to offer them or possible solutions. I could look into public transporation, but I already have some sort of an idea about the state of public transpotration in Indianapolis and it's not great.