My supervisor has me communicate regularly with patients as the medical professionals at clinic and actively encourages me to ask questions. She has specifically given me tasks that requires me to interact with the team and become more comfortable with communicating in a professional manner. She also has had me lead debriefs with the team in large, which while nerve wracking, was a key to my growth.
March 2024: I have developed this skill immensely since the fall. I have had opportunities to interact with many new people, and each time I am more confident in my communication with them. I have consulted with, and consulted by, many people on the team which has really broken me out of my shell. I would like to continue growing by beginning to actively seek out others to talk to, and not rely on others to make the first connection.
I have been given assignments that allow me to communicate and actively be a part of the team. At the internship, I am in charge of facilitating clinic flow, and ensuring that appointments are progressing in a timely manner, which requires coordination with residents and other healthcare professionals.
March 2024: My teamwork skills have been greatly impacted by this site. I often struggle with taking over operations and trying to do all of the work by myself, but through this internship I have learned to take a step back and work with others more fluently. I am used to a leadership position, as a recitation leader and a shift lead, but I have learned how to let work be divided more evenly to truly work as a team.
Throughout my internship, I have applied things I have learned to new tasks assigned to me. For example, after the first couple weeks of being in clinic, my supervisor had me create a handout explaining what certain scores meant from questionnaires given to patients at the beginning of their visit. With the handout I added resources that doctors have access to to help their patients, typical questions asked of patients with substance use disorders, and types of physical therapy offered to patients. Although it was not asked of me, I applied information I had picked up on to enhance the handout and provide information to newcomers to the clinic.
March 2024: I have continued to apply what I have learned through the creation of infographics for clinics, certificates, and organizing papers into a more logical manner for the clinic.
I would like to improve my ability to be independent and not rely so much on my supervisor. I have started independently doing tasks that have been assigned to me previously, but I feel I lack independence when it comes to new assignments due to a fear that I will mess something up. In order to work on this, I need to build confidence in myself and my abilities, which will come from putting myself out of my comfort zone and pushing myself to my limits. I am good at knowing where my limits are and pushing myself, but I believe I need to go farther and more consistently past them.
I am a hard worker, and will be able to achieve my goals because of that. I put my all into tasks assigned to me because I am determined to succeed, which I believe is my greatest strength.
There are many opportunities for education within each clinic. For example, I have learned about suboxone (buprenorphine) which acts as a partial agonist for opiate receptors on cells. Suboxone allows patients to stop using opiates without withdrawal symptoms and increase their quality of life. As a biology major, it is fascinating to see what I've learned in class applied in real life. I have learned so much about medication, cellular pathways, anatomy and physiology, and even things about dentistry that have only solidified my belief that I am in the right field.
After another semester at my internship, I have continued to learn about biological processes, anatomy, and medication which have proved to be invaluable to my education. In my cell biology class, for example, I have applied what I have learned at my internship to projects in the class that have helped me solidify my understanding of cell biology.