Professional Goals

Career

The career path I am following is Orthopaedic Surgery with a Biomedical Engineering Degree.

I enjoy being involved with people and feel that medicine is my calling. Being in medicine requires teamwork and a desire to heal others. I love to see others achieve their potentials, and medicine is a direct way to help people back up so they can be their best selves.

I know that Orthopaedics is where I want to be, my only reservation is the duration of medical school. While being in school until I am 33 does not appeal overly much to me, I know it will be worthwhile. For the last few years I have been reading about the life of an Orthopaedic surgeon and watching various procedures, and none of their struggles deter me and I find all the work fascinating. To further explore the career, I am looking into shadowing an orthopaedic surgeon next year, hopefully by the summer.

Professional Development

Build a network, I know that being connected to your potential field is at least tied for the best thing that you can to prepare to work in it. While working, I want to meet and get to know as many members of the field of medicine as possible. I could not know too many people, so I would like to meet as many as I can.

Build skill sets, similar to it not being possible to be connected to too many people, I think there is not a limit to how much I can know. Through experience and training, I would like to acquire as many skill sets as possible to prepare for any future work.

Semester Goals

Increased proficiency in relevant software is a primary goal for my internship. The current example is Unreal Engine which is vital to my current project of VR Therapy. Co-oping with an expert has helped improve my understanding of the versatility, but for intensive purposes, I am still a beginner in application of the program.

Assurance of Goals

I am still open to various options for my specific career, but I feel confident in my choice of healthcare. I am not entirely sure where I will fit into the network, but something about it just feels right, and being in the hospital for my internship felt right. Being in a hospital so regularly for my internship just helped confirm what I had thought for years, that being in healthcare is really where I want to be.

I will continue exploring where I think I will fit in, hopefully with future internships involved in the hospital as well as delving into biomaterials classes and research that will show the work supporting clinical applications. Having tried both sides of healthcare will help me decide where I think is right by exposure to what every day life would be like in those roles.

Next Steps

My plans over the summer have somewhat fallen apart with the ongoing pandemic as many have had similar experiences as me, but moving forward I hope to connect with professors at IUPUI and start volunteering or interning at their labs. Getting into research is a massively important part of my field so I want to stay involved in it as much as possible, but it is considered unessential so I will have to keep looking for any opportunities.