Internship

About the Internship

IUPDP has been around since 2009. Our mission is to have an impact on the treatment of Schizophrenia and provide help and treatment to those diagnosed and their families. We hope our work will help with better interventions to help people recover from psychosis. This is done through research studies and their relationship with PARC, which is the Center for Psychosis. We engage in studies with multiple patients through therapy sessions and reflections on their progress, all logged in our database to keep track and review. Did you know we have worked with over 1,000 research participants in our various studies over the years?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7ZUkHjpzM8

Breier, A., & Breier, D. (2023, August 11). Theo’s Story | Dr. Alan & Diane Breier Prevention and Recovery Center for Early Psychosis. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7ZUkHjpzM8

Project Summary:

Supervisor names/anyone who has helped: Dr. Jenifer L. Vohs, Mr. Andy Visco, Ms. Audrey Satchivi, and Mr. David Spradley
Supervisor Department and School/Hospital Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Indiana University School of Medicine
Project title: Court-Ordered Treatment in Early Phase Psychosis
Summary: My project focuses on furthering understanding of court-ordered treatment from the past research literature, as well as a large sample of individuals with Early Phase Psychotic illness (EPP). We will use a large, multisite dataset in which we collected demographic and legal information on participants in a EPP Learning Health System, Academic Community Early Psychosis Intervention Network (AC-EPINET). The purpose of this research project is to better understand not only how many people with EPP run into problems with the law, but also possible correlate of these difficulties. Understanding these rates and associated relationships is important in order to ultimately explore whether treatment can improve outcomes such as symptoms and recidivism with legal issues.

Final LHSI Project

Workplace

One skill I have is teamwork. This skill is important for this internship because I will work with other employees and the other LHSI interns at my site. This skill will also be important in my future career because I will work with patients, other Psychologists, and law enforcement daily. I obtained this skill through my years in dance and show choir. For coursework, I learned this in my Biology lab last year, in learning how to work as a team to complete our experiences. Another skill I have is communication. This skill is also important for me to be able to work with patients and my team properly. This skill will also be important in my future career because I will have to communicate with patients and go to court. I obtained this skill through my current English course, where I had to do group projects. I also obtained this skill from being in my shadow cast due to having to communicate with our leader about my schedule and rehearsals.

Throughout this year, I have tried to be the best team member I can be by always communicating, meeting new people, and touring our facilities to learn more. My team role throughout my internship changed a lot. My supervisor ended up leaving his position for another job opportunity. This led me to collaborate with other people, have shadowing opportunities, and get to do new things. My contributions helped my internship team have the most accurate and up-to-date data, which helped us discover how well our resources are working for patients.

Successes and Challenges

The first major time I felt successful as an intern was when I finished a whole set of data input within just a few hours. It was only checking and updating to ensure the form matched the website, but getting it done in that timeframe still felt good. The resources I will continue to use to achieve the same and similar successes are doing more data input and comparison through our RedCap database and asking to learn about new databases to expand my data input further.

The second major time I felt successful was when my supervisor and I met with Brandi. He told me they were so thankful for all my hard work, which made me feel good about doing it. The resources I will continue to use to achieve the same and similar successes are receiving feedback from my supervisor, Brandi, and LHSI ambassadors. This gives me more encouragement to continue with my progress and reassures me of my good work.

The first major challenge we had was finding things for me to do. The current study we were supposed to be working on got postponed, so we struggled to find things at first. We have found many things for me to work on now, and I am super grateful! I have been working mainly on data input through RedCap, our database, where we put all of our study results. My team has helped me overcome this challenge by meeting with me to ask about my progress and what interests me and showing me new things. My supervisor has been the main person who has helped me figure out what to do, but one of my team members has been the main one to show these things to me and give me more things to do as I finish. From this, I have learned how important it is to communicate with my supervisor about new tasks and what interests me. This will help me gain experience and achieve the goals I have set for my future career. I will use this in my future experiences by ensuring I communicate with my supervisor in any job position to get the most out of my position. I will continue communicating with my supervisor and team next semester to overcome this challenge if it reoccurs and similar challenges.

Another major challenge that I personally have had is making enough time for schoolwork. I am mostly online, so I have much more homework. I have found a pretty good rhythm for getting things done, but it was a challenge initially. If I still struggle with this in the spring, I will communicate with my supervisor to determine our best course of action. My team has helped me overcome this challenge by being understanding and flexible with my schedule. I know how important time management and communication are to succeed in this position. I will apply this in the future by better planning my schedule to make time for all the important things I need to fit in. In future experiences, I know how to plan and make a schedule to keep everything together sooner. I will continue communicating with my supervisor and team next semester to overcome this challenge if it reoccurs and similar challenges.

A major challenge I faced was my supervisor leaving in February. This made it even harder to figure out who to go to about things and what to do. Thankfully, this semester is more project-based, so my other supervisor was already on top of figuring out the transition. She got in contact with me about setting up meetings and let me know who to go to when I had any questions or wanted any shadowing opportunities.

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