My Internship

My internship site mainly focuses on genealogy research in terms of renal and prostate cancer, which that research is then used to consult and inform patients about their genetic history. They look deeper into the genes and genetics of cancer through the family history to find better and more specific methods of treatment, and if the cases of cancer can be used to aid in genomics research. Using this knowledge, the research behind discovering cancer treatments would be improved and more people will receive care specialized for them.

I can understand if it is a little hard to grasp what my internship site is all about, so here is a link to their website which should give some insight. This is a link to their second website which has an informational pdf and video linked to the website itself. If you just want to read through the pdf, you can find that here.

Project Summary

My internship's focus was involvement in IU Health Simon Cancer Center’s Hereditary Renal and Prostate Cancer Clinic. This multidisciplinary clinic focuses on kidney and prostate cancer patients and possible genetic conditions that could have caused their cancer. In this role, I scheduled patients, collected family histories, uploaded information into the research database, mailed patient letters, and helped with sample collection. During the clinic, family history was reviewed, possible risk factors for hereditary cancer syndromes were discussed, and genetic testing was offered. If the patient chose to test, they would get their blood drawn and sent to a lab. When the results were finalized, the patient was contacted to review them. If a patient tested positive, cancer risks and health screening recommendations were discussed. Family members would be recommended to undergo testing to determine if they also carry the gene variant which increases one’s risk of cancer. During clinic days, I observed the cases as the healthcare team spoke with patients. This project mainly goes over the importance of that work such as how it affects the patients and their families, the process behind it, and some important conditions tested for which can impact patients and their family's future medical care.

Learning and Skills

There are many skills that I have cultivated over the years working with teams during my part-time jobs and other group activities such as teamwork, communication, and listening that I hope to further nurture during my time at my internship. I know that my confidence will probably be a big area that I need to improve on. Even though I have worked in many positions in the past, whenever I enter a new area, I become very nervous and need a lot of help making sure I am doing everything right, I hate disappointing. Even so, I will be on my own a lot during this internship, so I will need to be able to be proactive and confident in my abilities early on. I will also need to cultivate my communication and listening skills better, as I will be following others' examples and receiving advice from them, so I will be able to learn more about my skills in that area. I also hope to improve my organizational and problem-solving skills, since I will likely run into areas that give me problems and I will need to be focused and calm in how I deal with and solve those issues. In terms of a more specific skill, I hope to learn more about how genealogists function and pedigrees are taken and used for genealogical research. I want to learn how to speak to patients in ways that make them feel understood and heard, and I want to learn how I can help them the best. I really hope this internship helps me improve all of my skills, and maybe I will even obtain new ones that will help in the future, such as behaving professionally and better time management. I am most excited about helping people better understand their health and history and understanding how this knowledge can impact the science of tomorrow. I am currently using a lot of communication and team-building skills, and being very independent in the workplace. I rely on my team to give me more work and encouragement and need good communication not just with them but with the patients I work with as well. I would really like to continue to work on those communication skills since while I use them a lot, I think I can still improve. I also want to work on my ability to confront challenges, since my confidence in myself will also be improved from improving in that area.

I have been very fortunate that my internship has really aligned with what I have been learning in my classes in terms of genetics. I am taking a genetics course now, one that is very important to my degree, and this internship has really helped put what I am learning in class into practice and allows me to see how it is used in medical fields. I have really liked how well what I am learning in my internship has paired up with what I learn in that class, I will learn it, be tested over it, and then use it here, which really helps me not only see the practical use of it but helps me understand what I have been taught better. I also think that I have grown a lot as an intern in terms of my confidence and ability to get work done on my own. I have learned a lot about how to stay focused and how to be professional in the workplace and my favorite experiences are always taking pedigrees, I really like hearing about people's family trees and there are always cool stories people tell me. I also really like drawing out pedigrees so it is fun for me as well.

There are a lot of skills that I have learned outside of this internship. I am a very busy student, so managing all of my tasks, classes, meetings, and volunteering has given me a lot on my plate. So, I have had to organize my schedule, manage my time, and complete a certain amount of things each night. I also have gained many people and communication skills at my volunteer site where I check people in and out of the food pantry and help them schedule. I have learned how to speak kindly and in a directed manner to make sure we both get the most out of the conversation. I also was able to improve my pedigree drawing skills and genetics knowledge by taking a genetics course, which relates to what I am doing at my internship.

I hope I have done a lot to impact larger projects. The major things my internship site are doing are all based on what is learned from the patients I schedule and collect family histories from. Without my work on scheduling patients and collecting their family history, there could be no work done on other projects. My tasks build the foundation of what is done so that more can be accomplished. I believe that my skill has become a lot better in one major way, I am much more confident in them now. I am more independent, I don't need to ask how to do something before I do it, I can speak confidently, and finish my tasks faster without thinking about them too hard.

I really think that this internship helped me flourish and work on my skills by allowing me to accomplish a lot on my own. This was mainly due to my supervisor being absent for a little bit, but it still really helped me. Everyone here has also been very patient and encouraging for me, helping me with my confidence in my own skill set, as I learn better through experience. My internship has also fit more with my classes. As I said before, it fits wonderfully with my Genetics class, as genealogy is the point of the internship and a lot of what I learned overlapped with what I was doing for my internship. This semester, I have another similar biology class that doesn't fit as well, but still sometimes overlaps with genetics, Cell biology. My internship has really laid out the material in a clear way that has really helped me understand the similar material in those classes.

The Workplace

I really want to emmulate the sense of comradery and support I observe in my workplace every day I am there. Everyone feel safe to ask for help and can adapt quickly to changes on their own. They are also incredibly supportive of me and the work I am putting forward. I also want to be able to improve my professional language and tone, since I can come off as quiet and improper sometimes. I also really want to be able to ask for help and take critism better, since I feel like I could really become disheartened by that. I need to understand that it is necessary to become a better professional and intern.

I have learned a lot about how cool my teamates are, and how their backgrounds not only shaped them into who they are today but also their work ethics. Some people focus more on the workload and other people focus more on keeping patients happy, it is all really interesting and I am learning a lot about what is most important to accomplish and how to create professional bonds in the workplace. My intership experience has been a bit lacking in work for a little bit, as my supervisor has unfortunately had to step away for a while, so there was less happening than I previously thought when I first started, but it was still really fulfilling work and I am going at full throttle right now. I didn't really know what to expect of my internship before I started, I was mainly just nervous, and I am happy to know now that I had nothing to worry about.

My attitudes and beliefs have not expanded as much as I would have preferred them to, as many people at my internship site think very similarly, but some people have shown me that is it possible to really enjoy yourself at your job. One person I work with always has a smile on even when she is bored and always makes conversation, which is always appreciated. I have also learned the importance to confidentiality and speaking to my supervisor with questions. I used to not really think about these issues, but my supervisor has relaly stressed hte importance of them to me, which is nice.

My workplace culture is very independent, with not much talking occuring between people as work needs to be done. I like that it is independent as I do not have to worry about anyone else, but I also do sometimes wish people talked more. My favorite parts about the last jobs I worked at was the relationships and fun conversations I had there. I like my workplace culture here, I just wish it was a but more lively I guess.

Successes and Challenges

I feel like my first big success at my internship was my first successful patient scheduling. I had some difficulty with the first person I tried to schedule, and it was really disheartening. I had to push past that though,a dn the next person I talked ot made it very easy to schedule them, and it felt like a big successs becuase this was the first true task that I had successfully completed. My first pedigree I took was also a big win, since it was something I was very interested in and very excited about. I was very nervous, but when I was done I was able to look back on my work and be really happy and impressed that I had done it correctly. Those are my current major successes, and I hope to find more here in the future! I can update my successes a little bit. I can now answer the phone without reading off a script, and can work almost fully indeendently. I am much more confident in myself and have learned to take on my new tasks, and have a closer relationship to the reserach side of my internship with those new tasks, which is awesome. I have leanred a lot from these successes, mainly that I can do more than I thought, taking on more work can be fun, and that I really like seeing what we do help people afterwards, which has become a big driving force for me.

I would say that the most challenging part of this experience would have to be finding the courage to call people. I have anxiety about this type of stuff, and it is always really difficult for me to work upu the nerve to call patients, even though whenever I do it always goes very well, and my anxiety vanishes the second they pick up and I start talking. Even so, I still become very nervous before starting a phone conversation witha patient and I don't know why. I don't want to mess up, offend them, or make it difficult for them, but those things have never happened, at least not to an extent where I had messed up things for others as well. I hope to talk more ot my supervisor about my anxieties to get some tips on how to overcome them and support from someone who does it all the time. Sometimes new challenges do arise, I had to change my workspace, our technology got updated, I had to take more course on confidentiality, but htey all help me become a better intern and student. I have taken on more work and feel all the better for it. My supervisor has been very supportive of me though these challenges, not rushing me, giving me advice and guidence, and giving me resources of people to reach out to with specific questions. I also had a very unfortunate event affect my family recently, and my superviosr was incrediblyunderstanding, and let me take a day off. Overall, she has really been a great support for me and while I am being challenged often it is nothing I cannot handle.

My biggest challenge to overcome was my anxiety and confidence realated to my position. I really think I have overcome this challenge, I can now call patients immediately without the script I used, I just stay confident with what I am saying and I can get through it. Extra successes would be the new data inputting skills I have learned and the new repsonsibilities I have taken up as a result. These challenges and successes have let me know how rewarding these experiences can be for me, and has let me know that it is possible to work through my anxiety with time.

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