Goals & Learning

Career Goals

My current goal is to get into medical school after my undergrad and become a doctor. Being a doctor is something that I think I will enjoy because I like to help others and am interested in the medical life, including treating patients and working with illnesses and medicine. In order to work toward this goal, I will be exploring different internships and related courses in order to find my preferences and specific interests.

When I started LHSI, my main goal that I had in mind for my career path was taking the MCAT, which is a big step towards medical school. I mentioned action steps to help me proceed towards that goal, including purchasing study books, creating a study plan, sharpening my resume, and looking into opportunities that will help me gain experience. I have checked some of those to-dos, but I still have quite a few things to do as I head into my Junior year. During the summer, I would like to start checking some of those like create a study plan and begin studying. I will continue to look for more opportunities with Handshake and PREPS to build my resume and gain experience. I do plan on taking some summer classes this year to make sure I get the courses I need for my degree. Overall, my LHSI internship has helped me determine my interest in neurology as a specialty that I may want to pursue in the future because of the types of research and studies I have read about in my internship. Having the opportunity to shadow a neurologist at my internship has also helped me see what a neurologist does, allowing me to make decisions about my future career goal.

Internship Goals

Learning Goal #1: Learn to manage my time wisely and balance all my work.

Relevance: As someone with multiple interests and responsibilities, it is important to know how to prioritize my life while getting everything done. Having an organized routine can help me function better and do my work properly.

Related Tasks:

Using Microsoft TEAMS to assign tasks, which will help with organization.
Excel sheet is used to determine due dates for assigned tasks, which will help with time managing

In terms of LHSI, I think that I have done a good job getting my work done when I need to. With my supervisor allowing me time and details on when things are due with a task list, I can manage to get my work done. It has, however, been difficult to balance my school work with all the classes I have. Since I have both LHSI and outside campus involvement, life can get busy and stressful. There are times when I have pushed back assignments on a specific course to prioritize another. This is still a goal that I would like to work on, but I have seen growth from previous terms with this term. I will most likely work to create a schedule and be consistent with it.

Learning Goal #2: Gain new knowledge or acquire new skills.

Relevance: For me, it is important that the things I do are meaningful and beneficial. Therefore, I would like to learn new things from this internship whether it be about the specific research the site works on or a skill that I develop over the year.

Related Tasks:

Using REDCap to enter data.
Shadow doctors and other specialists.
Create binders for meetings.

With LHSI allowing me to work on tasks that I have never done before, I have gained much from this experience. I have had the opportunity to work with new tools such as REDCap, ATRI, and Microsoft TEAMS, some of which are things that I may have to use in a different position in the future. While it was difficult getting comfortable with these apps and skills, they have become something that is simple and easy to engage with. Since most of what I've learned is based on tools and skills, I hope to gain new knowledge as well. For my internship site specifically, that would mean getting familiar with Alzheimer's and what the study is about to learn how neurons work and what is different in the brain of people with AD.

Learning Goal #3: Understand what it’s like to be in the healthcare field.

Relevance: Since I want to go to medical school, I hope that this internship can open new perspective on what that life might be like. That way, I can decide if it’s something I truly want to pursue.

Related Tasks:

Shadow doctors.
See how the study is conducted.

Since I had the opportunity to shadow a few visits, it allowed me to get a glimpse of physician-patient interaction. For instance, I shadowed a physical examination that allowed me to get an understanding of how a physician might ask questions, check the patient, and take notes during this process. Since these shadows were specific to my internship, LEADS, I think that I still have more things I can learn about the healthcare field. Although it is not related to LHSI, a step towards this goal would be to look for shadowing with various doctors, finding a volunteer opportunity at a clinic/hospital, or working in a hospital setting, which are things I will be seeking after LHSI.

Learning

During the fall, I have been working on my communication and independence skills because that is where my work requires most of my time. For instance, a lot of my tasks like making binders and uploading important documents are all things that I do independently. Therefore, I am given a lot of time to make sure I can manage these tasks by myself without requiring too much work. However, this has also helped me work on my communication skills because when I do need help, I have to either talk to my supervisor or my peer. I have been more confident in acknowledging my weakness and asking for clarifications when I do need it.
For the spring, the skill that I have used the most during my internship with LHSI is independence, which is the same as October. Oftentimes, when I am given a task under the task list, I do not have to meet with my supervisor as I can get started on my own and do everything alone. As a result, I had to get comfortable with my tasks fast and be okay with working without support (although I know that I can always get help if I need to). Giving me freedom and alone time with my work has helped me gain confident and discipline as I became more independent. This is a skill I will continually need as I move on to further courses in my academic career and even in things like research and jobs I might be involved in in the future.
During the fall, I can work on constructive criticisms and recognizing challenges or failures. Sometimes, I push back tasks that I think will be too difficult because I don't want to make a mistake. However, I can always ask for help and guidance, so that is something that I should be more confident in taking. I also have not worked on taking in constructive criticisms because my supervisor and I meet mostly to review my work so far and what I can do in the future. However, I think it can be helpful to also ask for feedbacks on my work ethic and progress so far in order to hear feedbacks and improve from them.
Similar to October, I still think that my biggest weakness is recognizing challenges or failures in the spring. With criticism, it was hard to hear in the beginning when I made some mistakes creating binders and labeling documents. However, those feedbacks helped me do a better job, making me learn to take a step back and be patient with the work I am doing. While it can be hard to push through the challenges, I have learned to be patient with them. I know that asking for feedback is always something I will have to do if I want to get better at things, even after LHSI.

As a neuroscience major, this internship has helped me understand some of the mechanisms of our brain and what happens if errors occur since the site is doing a study on Alzheimer's. I was able to read about some of their studies and papers that they've published, which also helped me learn how research is conducted and what types of methods and medical terminologies are used in order to get their points across.

Since the tasks I had in the Spring semester is the same as Fall, most of what I have learned from LHSI in regards to my academics is the same. Seeing the published papers on their LEADS website helped me gain an understanding of scientific studies, which is something I will have to do as a science major.

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