My Internship

LHSIFINALPRES.pptx

 

Project Summary

The Undiagnosed Rare Disease Clinic (URDC) is a clinic that takes in patients with genetically undiagnosed rare diseases. The typical story of a patient seen in our clinic includes a rare combination of clinical conditions and an inconclusive genetic testing report. The patient is then referred to us, and we run more extensive genome sequencing and analyze the data from a research perspective. It is a much more extensive look than the classic clinical genetics. It is common for the mutations found to be only recently discovered to be associated with disease, or maybe not even fully published. My part in the clinic is to help where needed. I have done things from scanning consent documents to retrieving media for biopsies. Most of my first year has been spent learning from a small team at the URDC. My project will be an overview of the URDC and what role each team member plays in the research to identify each patient's medical mystery.  

Learning and Skills

I hope to build on my current strengths by learning how to better work with a team in a professional environment. I will develop my abilities to really learn from others as I am truly new to such a field.

I am excited to work with patients, and be a part of a professional team. I am also excited to be a part of something that serves a purpose and can help people.

Currently in the middle of the first semester during my internship I can see some growth in skills. I am starting to become more comfortable in a professional setting, and dealing with other professionals. I believe this is due to self-confidence. I am also building interpersonal skills when working with patients. I would like to continue to build these skills, and hopefully build skills in the future dealing with technical skills such as professional writing, and data logging.

This internship has gone well with my coursework. In my internship I am learning much more about genetics. This is something I have been taught the basics of so far in biology courses. In the future this experience will help me greatly in genetics courses.

 I have learned how to interact with patients, and grown these skills. My favorite part of the job is when I get to interact with the patients, especially the kids. In one specific example I was in charge of distracting and playing with the kids while another team member got consent from the parents. This was my favorite part of the internship so far.

Contribution

My impact on the team at URDC is small but important. I don't directly provide for the patient, and I don't make any of the medical decision making. I do help things run smoothly. I do little things like make copies, staple paperwork, or go retrieve media for a biopsy. I do the little things which allows the more important people to do what they need.

The Workplace

I have dealt with some great people in my internship. I few of the important aspects I have noticed is how professional the doctors are able to be with patients while still being able to connect. There is an important balance where you need to connect and establish trust while still being professional and respectful. This seems to be a skill that is establish rather naturally. I would like to develop these skills and gain a better ability to converse with patients as a professional. I would also like to build my abilities to become a reliable team member. I mean in the specific sense that I can build my confidence and knowledge in what I can and can't do and therefore I am able to commit to things more reliable within the team.

I have learned many things from my teammates throughout the internship. One of my teammates was born in another country, and came over to the United States when she was an older child. I have learned about the culture surrounding her family when they came to America. I learned that her family put on a lot of pressure to get an education and go to college. I also learned of the difficulties of coming to America with english as a second language.

I have realized a few things about being a professional from working at the URDC. One major thing I learned is that you can not tell the background of someone just by interacting with them on a professional level. This means that everyone has a secret "backstory", but also it means that you are whoever you present yourself to be. If you want to be seen as the nicest and most respectful person who listens to everyone then do it, it doesn't matter how many times you weren't nice before. As I continue to learn from my colleagues I want to become better at working with others and making a positive impact on the people I work with. What I mean is that I would like to learn what people need from someone they work with on a personal level, and if it changes per person. Do people need someone to laugh with, give them confidence, or more?

The workplace culture at my internship is nice. People are nice and respectful. People in general are the nicest versions of the position that I have seen. What I mean is that the doctor is one of the nicest and most repectful doctors I know, and my surpervisor is the nicest and most respectful boss I've ever had. As far as the overall environment I would say that it ranks really high on realistic possible environments. The only major differences I would note between current and ideal would be the overall level of stress. This is no fault of anyone that works there, and is likely a product of the field; however, everyone seems to be highly stressed all of the time. There is always something that could fail and "ruin everything".

Success and Challenges

I felt like I have success when I complete filing paperwork. While this may be boring, that is why it feels like a success when I complete the work. I know it is boring, but I still do it anyway. I have had more successes like filling out a chart with phenotypes. These have taught me that I can help even by doing tasks that other people can do.

The biggest challenges of the Internship thus far has been the same thing, the paperwork. The paperwork is boring, but it must be done. In the near future I will be done doing the majority of the paperwork that is the monotonous part. A challenge that I have faced recently is that I do not have a lot of time to work at the clinic. This has limited my ability to make an impact as I can't commit to anything that is abstract with a deadline. I am still currently working around this, and have done so by taking on tasks that do not have hard deadlines, and are easy to guess the time for.