Goals

Professional Goals

Ultimately, my main goal at the moment is to make it into medical school, and eventually into practice as a surgeon specializing in Orthopedic Trauma or General Trauma. To do this, I have chosen a major that I am passionate about, and that fulfills all of the prerequisite classes for applying to medical school. The reason that I want to go to medical school is to help others. In practicing medicine, the life of the physician is dedicated to making a positive impact in someone else's life in a major way: by dedicating most of your life to helping those in need. This is something that really resonates with me because I find joy and purpose in helping others in any way possible. Medicine seems to be the best way for me to meet that need for help and my purpose for helping others.

Each time that I have shadowed or spent time volunteering in the medical field after time away, I am renewed with how much I love what I am doing/seeing. As an RA, I am developing the interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence to help serve others, especially in a crisis situation. Similarly, each time that I return into the medical filed via shadowing or volunteering, I become more and more sure that I want join the medical field in some way.

In the rest of my time here at IUPUI, I am hoping to make some connections within the IU School of Medicine both physicians, educators, and board members so that I can see what needs to be done before I apply to medical school. In addition to this, I am hoping to potentially gain a position as a TA or a recitation leader to help others and to improve my skills as a peer educator.

While being in a professional environment for a little over 3 months now, I have observed some professional behaviors that I would like to adapt when presenting myself in a professional manor. When in professional settings, I wish to be patient, open to feedback, reliable, and able to communicate in a concise and direct, yet polite manor. I feel pretty confident that I am able to communicate well, but I wish to keep growing in my ability to be open to feedback, my patience, and my reliability. By improving these professional traits, I will be better able to communicate and work well with others.

At this point in my career preparation, I am completely certain that I want to go to medical school. The exhaustion that I find after each surgery day fills me with an incredible sense of purpose and fulfilment. A similar sense is found when I am performing clinical evaluations on the rats, or helping to treat them, but I know that by pursuing medical school, these feelings will become stronger as I gain more experience.

This semester as I am prepping to take the MCAT, I need to find and implement an effective study schedule that will allow me to focus on my classes and improve my overall knowledge of the MCAT specific material while also balancing working as an RA and a research assistant. To do this, I need to master and effectively implement time management strategies that will allow this.

Internship Goals

I have three goals for my internship at the Veronesi Lab during the 2020-2021 academic year:

• Learn about different laboratory techniques including analyzing scientific information, and how to communicate that information with my peers in an engaging manor (via possible publication/presentation).

• Demonstrate understanding of the importance of laboratory research to the advancement of the medical field.

• Relate knowledge and experience gained from my internship to other areas of my life (professional life, school life, ect.).

My Plan

To achieve these goals, I need to follow the plan I have set for myself. This plan includes maintaining good academic standing, gaining the relevant experiences needed, and applying for medical school all within a certain time frame. The goals I have set for myself follow the SMART Goals outline where the goals are: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely. By following this model and sticking to it I should be able to achieve these goals to help my dream become a reality.

To convey part of my work at my internship site, I am hoping to create a presentation that is accessible to both peers, and members of the non-scientific community. In order to do this, I need to complete three different stages of the in-vivo model being studied within The Veronesi Lab: model development, single drug trial, and combination drug trial. Once the in-vitro model is developed, data can be gathered for a single drug trial and an abstract can be drafted for a potential publication.

To learn more about the medical school admissions process, I am planning to reach out the director of admissions as well as any connections that I make through the LHSI program. By reaching out to these contacts I will hopefully be able to gain some insight about different aspects of medicine and how to best represent myself during the medical school application process. Hopefully during this process, I will also be able to practice my professional skills of communication, patience, reliability, and openness to feedback.