Goals & Learning

Career Goals

My career and professional school goals are to attend medical school and specialize in neurosurgery. I have these goals because they combine my love of sciences with my desire to help others. While my specialty of interest may change, I'm certain on becoming a physician scientist. This year through this research experience, shadowing, and GTG mentoring I will further determine if these goals fit my strengths and preferences. Over the course of this year and my career goals have been supported and realized through my internship. I've been blessed to have the support and guidance from my new mentors and after the conclusion of the internship, I will be staying on to continue working in the lab. I believe that I have a lot of confidence to make decisions about my career after the internship.

Internship Goals

Learning Goal #1: Expand of my foundation of lab techniques and concepts

Relevance: This goal fits into my overall career plan since I plan on continuing research as a physician scientist.

Action Plan: In order to meet this goal I will work in the lab under supervision with graduated autonomy learning lab techniques such as data analysis, gene sequencing, and PCR using animal models, conduct experiments relevant to our topics, and condense findings into scholarly documents.

Over the course of my internship, I have been able to expand on my foundations of lab techniques and concepts through the projects that have been completed. When I first started, I felt like I didn't really have a good grasp on what all was going on. However, over the course of the year, I was taught numerous techniques including histology and histological analysis which have improved my research skills substantially.

Learning Goal #2: Develop my professional presentation skills

Relevance: This goal fits into my overall career plan since a large part of research involves presenting findings at conferences and meetings.

Action Plan: In order to meet this goal I will present at weekly lab meetings, present lab abstracts at scientific venues, and present findings with team members.

Coming into the internship, I had built a decent foundation for making professional presentations but it wasn't very extensive. Throughout this internship, I've had the opportunity to present on numerous occasions, including scholarly conferences, which have improved my presentation skills substantially.

Learning Goal #3: Understand the key research topics and advances

Relevance: This goal fits into my overall career plan since understanding why a specific topic is being researched will deepen my understanding on the topic and our approaches.

Action Plan: In order to meet this goal I will perform literature reviews, investigate known literature for techniques and topics, and gain knowledge through lab work.

Coming into the internship, scientific literature seemed like a very complex thing that would take a lot of time to understand. Upon starting the internship, I realized that it was a lot more feasible than I had imagined. Through reading previously published literature and contributing to new literature, It helped me to stay up to date on the current science being performed.

Learning

- - - - The skills I find myself using so far are communication, teamwork, and integration and application. As we continue to do experiments, I find it more encouraging to collaborate and work together in the lab. These skills also make the overall environment more open and friendly. These skills are very important and I also find that I can connect the experiments to the majority of my basic science coursework. Since the fall, the skills I've found to be using the most are communication and teamwork. Since the new year, we've been working to finish a lot of projects which means we've spent a lot time communicating about what things need to be done along with what we all have to do to meet deadlines. I believe this has used the most communication and teamwork.

- - - - The skill I want to continue to work on is independence. Since I started not too long ago, I still am gathering autonomy in the lab as I become more conditioned to the day-to-day experiments. In order to grow these skills I will keep showing up with a positive ready-to-learn attitude to gain autonomy with experiments. I also plan to ask for clarification more often during experiments in order to strengthen my research skills. As my internship comes to a close, I think independence is still something that I could work on, however I have worked up to a level of graduated autonomy. Since I'll be staying on for another year, over the summer I will continue to learn new skills and take on new projects to gain more independence.

This internship has helped me gain a deeper understanding of my coursework because the basic science is applicable to a large part of the research being performed. This allows me to relate what's being done back to my coursework. For example, when doing analysis of histology slides my strong background in biology and chemistry allows me to make confident decisions. In the spring semester, I've been able to make more connections from the basic and surgical science to my coursework. Since the framework of a lot of translational science is organic chemistry, I've been able to gain a deeper understanding while making meaningful connections to my coursework.

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