My Internship
My team works to improve the health of Hoosiers by focusing on the use of team-based clinics to ensure the best course of care for patients living with chronic pain. Our work is important, as over 20% of the population lives with chronic pain according to the CDC.
I am responsible for collaborating with healthcare professionals and learners in the Comprehensive Pain Assessment Clinic (CoPAC), creating infographics and handouts for the IPE Center and CoPAC, and creating detailed spreadsheets of patient, learner, and healthcare professional information.
Learning and Skills
Orientation
During my internship, there are a few areas that I feel I will be successful in thanks to my past experiences. For example, I believe that my job as a barista has allowed me to sharpen my communication skills since I have been pushed to communicate with a multitude of different individuals in this position, such as customers, coworkers, and supervisors. This position has also allowed me to use my skills in a team setting, as well as recognizing how to efficiently work with others to achieve a common goal. Additionally, I am well-versed in both written and oral communication thanks to the Professional Communications course that I took during my second semester at IUPUI. This course focused on the collaboration between a team of students and an organization in our community.
Although there are aspects of my professional skills that will be helpful to me during my internship, there are some skills that I plan on working to improve. I am hoping to ameliorate my problem-solving abilities and perseverance; I oftentimes get discouraged if instructions are not carefully drawn out or if things do not go the way that I would like them to, so I hope to enhance my ability to work through those situations. Likewise, another goal of mine is to discover my preferred work style. Recognizing the work style that suits me best will help me to become more efficient in a team setting.
I have been working at my internship for a few weeks now, and I am most looking forward to meeting and building a relationship with all of the patients we see in our specialty clinics. The patients I have met thus far are amazing, and I truly have learned so much from each of them. I am also excited to attend some of the events that the IPE Center hosts, as they are great ways to network with students from various professional schools, healthcare professionals, and my coworkers. These events also focus on topics that can be applied directly to my future career, and I believe that they will help me to become a more well-rounded dental professional in the future.
Mid-Fall Semester
I believe that I have already began to improve upon my skills. I think that working as an intern at the IPE Center has began to help me with my communication skills. I am constantly surrounded by a multitude of different people with varying levels of education, and I am responsible for adapting the way that I communicate in order to relate to each of them. I have seen improvement in my communication skills when I have talked to patients, physicians, and with members of my IPE team. I think that my communication can always get better, but I am happy to be able to see it improve from my time as an intern.
In addition to improvement of my communication skills, I have been becoming more independent. For example, our attending physician expressed the desire for handouts pertaining to stigmas around individuals with substance use disorder (SUD). I have been completing my assigned tasks quickly, so I volunteered to make the handouts even though the physician did not ask me to. In the past I have been eager to help, but I would not have volunteered myself; instead, I would have waited until the physician asked if someone could make the handouts.
One thing that I plan to continue to improve is my confidence contributing to group conversations. I like to collaborate with others; however, in CoPAC I am typically working with people more advanced in the healthcare field than I am. This sometimes makes me feel hesitant to share my opinion even if I know that it would be constructive.
November
Throughout my internship, I have been exposed to patients with SUD. A good option for individuals with substance use disorder is a medication called suboxone, or sometimes referred to as its brand name buprenorphine, which binds tightly to receptors to out-compete any other opioid. I have also learned that suboxone is a partial agonist, which means that it does not activate receptors as strongly as heroine or other drugs, so the amount of suboxone taken does not correlate to the amount of receptor "sealing", as it can only "seal" so much. A video explaining buprenorphine/suboxone in greater detail can be found on the Providers Clinical Support System website or by clicking on this link.
This information has been very interesting, as I am learning about receptors and their functions in my genetics and molecular biology class this semester. I have found our team discussions on buprenorphine to be beneficial for not only my clinical knowledge, but also for my course work, as I have been able to understand a real-life example of a topic I am learning about in class.
I have learned so much about myself and others during my internship. I have been able to engage in activities through the IPE Center which have taught me about aspects of healthcare that I otherwise would know close to nothing about. For example, I attended an event about social determinants of health where I was able to gain a further understanding of different factors that may deter someone from receiving healthcare or assistance. I also participated and assisted with the Cycle of Addiction event, which was focused on gathering resources for learners in the healthcare field (e.g. social work, dentistry, medicine, nursing, etc.) that could be helpful in their future careers.
Spring
I have had an amazing time working with the IPE Center this year. Through my work, I have been able to see patients improve their chronic pain through treatment at the CoPAC clinic. Additionally, I have developed more confidence when it comes to discussing patient care, which has helped my team see ideas from a different angle.
I have grown in many ways through this internship, but I have grown my communication skills the most. At the beginning of the year, I was pretty timid when it came to sharing my opinion during out huddle at the CoPAC clinic, but now I am eager to contribute to the group discussion and help patients through my ideas.
One thing that I need to work on is asking for help/more work when I need it. I have no trouble completing tasks that are assigned to me, but I have a hard time asking for help when I need it or asking for more work when I finish all of my assigned duties.
The Workplace
Fall Reflection
Over the first few weeks of my internship, I have been able to work with a team of healthcare professionals and learners in the Comprehensive Pain Assessment Clinic. While doing this, I have been able to see how the residents, social workers, and physicians at CoPAC talk to and interact with patients. The first thing that I noticed when observing them is how much I admire the way they interact with patients; I feel like the residents, social workers, and physicians always know the right things to say in every situation, and I strive to have the same ability in my future career.
The biggest thing that I have learned from working in my team is to not be afraid of asking questions or sharing my opinion. I work with a number of different people, all of which vary in terms of educational levels, and I have become more comfortable asking questions when I do not know vocabulary or giving input when I think it will help the conversation. My supervisor stresses on psychological safety, which means that everyone in our team is safe to ask questions, as it is important for us to help educate each other to ensure the best treatment of our patients.
Before starting my internship, I had envisioned myself doing a lot of computer work and charting patient data. My experience has consisted of a little bit of computer work and virtual meetings, but for the most part I am getting hands on experience in the clinic helping to treat patients. For example, I have assisted my supervisor remove calluses off of a patient's feet, which is something that I never envisioned myself doing at my site but is something that I really enjoyed; I was able to gain experience doing something that I otherwise probably never would have had the chance to do.
Throughout my internship, I have had the opportunity to interact with people who have different perspectives and backgrounds that are different than mine. This has made me value the importance of differing opinions when it comes to patient care, which is primarily what my internship focuses on. Without different ideas and input, our patients may have not gotten the best course of care for their pain. With that being said, I have learned and grown a lot from the interactions with doctors, physical therapists, and social workers I have had in the clinic. I am more confident in voicing my opinion in a group setting, and I feel like there is always something that is valuable from eveyone's opinions. I have also realized that I can still learn and grow from these experiences; I aspire to continue to get more confident asking questions when I do not understand something.
Spring Reflection
The workplace culture and values of my internship team are very focused around teamwork through an interprofessional approach. My team focuses on work with many disciplines (e.g. social work, physical therapy, medicine, dentistry, chaplaincy, nursing, etc.) in order to help patients improve their health. It has been very interesting to see this type of culture in the workplace, as I have not been exposed to it in the past.
I think that the values of my internship site align pretty well with my ideal workplace culture. I love working in a team, and this is something that is very prevalent in my future career as a dentist. Further, my internship site values the opinion of every team member, which is very important in dentistry, as well.
Successes and Challenges
I have had a variety of experiences during my internship that have made me feel successful. I have been able to work on some projects for the IPE Center/CoPAC independently that have turned out well. More specifically, I designed and created an infographic on language around individuals with SUD. In order to create a well-composed document, I was sure to seek out resources from our family medicine physician at the clinic and look up videos and articles online to ensure a well-rounded understanding of the topic. After I created the infographic, I showed it to my supervisor, a family medicine resident, and a physician at the clinic; all 3 of the people I showed it to expressed how good they thought it looked and how I was able to organize the language effectively on the sheet. This made me feel like a valuable asset to the team, as it was the first project that I did individually for my internship.
Similarly, my team was preparing to attend a health fair in Salem, Indiana with the Center for Rural Engagement at IU Bloomington. At one of the meetings with the complete team attending the fair (individuals from Bloomington, Indianapolis, Bulter, Salem, and more), someone expressed the need for a larger blood pressure cuff for the fair. As a result, my supervisor said that she would hunt one down for the fair. I knew that there was large cuffs at the CoPAC clinic, so I set a reminder to grab one the next time I was there. I ended up getting a cuff and letting my supervisor know, and she was very appreciative of my attentiveness and willingness to assist with something that I was not tasked with.
Even though I have had multiple successes, I have also been exposed to a challenge. The only challenge that I can think of has been that I often times do not know when to ask for help. Whether it be needing more work or asking for clarification on a patient's chart, I sometimes feel myself hesitating to ask for help in these situations. I have been actively trying to work through this challenge by asking my supervisor for help when I need it, as she is someone always makes me feel comfortable and supported.
Project
Project Summary
The Well Child & Oral Health Clinic is held at IU Health Primary Care Central Indianapolis as an interprofessional environment where a team works to provide comprehensive wellness and oral health examinations for pediatric patients. The team is comprised of Family Medicine Residents, Dental and Dental Hygiene learners, and clinic staff. The age of patients ranges from 1-18 years old. Parents or caregivers of children attend the patient visit with the child. As a clinic, the residents and learners work in pairs to see each patient. The pairs allow each profession to learn more about others’ roles/responsibilities, how to communicate with patients, and how to collaborate to create a “comprehensive” care plan.
Oral health examinations are imperative to health and wellbeing of all individuals. Additionally, poor oral health has consequences that interact with chronic conditions. It is reported that patients with untreated oral health conditions tend to receive health care in emergency rooms where their dental concerns are often not treated. Innovations in Oral Health and Primary Care Integration (2021) reported that models of primary care and oral health integration provide an opportunity to meet patients’ oral health needs across the socio-economic spectrum.
Extra Helpful Resources
