My Strengths as a Team Member:

• Collaborative worker

• Listener

• Organized 

• Effective communication

• Dependable

  • • As a team member I strive to be dependable for my team. When a task needs to be completed, I am organized and work in a timely manner. If an issue arises I use my communication skills, some that I have learned over the last year, and voice my need for help or further explanation. 

Where do I want to grow?

As a professional, this year I have grown in my communication. When an issue arises and I do not have the answer I turn to my team or my supervisor. I explain the issue I've run into and I am able to ask for help. For this internship, as well in later in life I will need to communicate with patients or individuals who may be in a very vulnerable situation in their life. Emotions will be shared and they aren't always pretty. I want to be able to interact with patients and be able handle disagreement and emotion in a professional manner when necessary. 

As a teammate, this year I have learned to celebrate the little successes. When I first received a new task it seemed daunting depending on the time it needed to be completed, how challenging it would be, and how much time it required. For example I needed to review and collect qualitative data for a study we were finishing up. I did not know how to collect said data, so it was a challenge. I used my resources and I troubleshooted with the software we were using. I was able to create a tab where the data could be seen and updated as we finished interviews with participants. By doing this, data would be easier accessible for my team. After completing it I took a second to celebrate because I had never done anything like it and it was a challenge I overcame. Now this being said not every  task that I completed was perfect, and it needed improvement. As a team member I want to be able to take constructive feedback and be able to apply it. As well as be able to utilize it for situations further down the road in my career.  

So far, as an intern, I have felt very successful when I helped with the HEAL-R conference. This conference was a health equity symposium, meaning health equity scholars from all over came together to share their research and possibly collaborate. One of my parts in all of this was to manage a room where these scholars were sharing their studies. I had to make sure everything was prepped and that they were comfortable using the tools given to them. I was the pin point person for the moderator of the room and I had to make sure things behind the scenes ran smoothly. I was able to do this by saying yes. A simple yes, and being willing, is what led me to accomplishing this. In contrast, one  issue I've run into is being able to separate each study from each other. This internship allows me to take part in many studies. So far I have been apart of more than 5 studies. It can be challenging knowing which is which. My team has helped me with this by reassuring me it is a lot, and provide me with further resources to read and learn about each study.