Learning Goals
Learning Goal 1: Assess whether this kind of research is something I would wish to pursue in my career, or whether I should pursue this area in the medical field.
In the fall, I was unsure of whether or not I wanted to pursue research in addition to, or even in place of, my goals of becoming a medical professional. I had very little understanding about what research entailed, and the amount of time and patience it took to get good results in the field of research. I understood that I would need to gain personal experience in the lab to further my understanding of the complexities of research. This would also involve discussing with my supervisor about my work to see how I could make improvements and where I had gone wrong. My experience in the lab has made me come to realize and understand more about research. While I believe I have decided that I will continue my pursuit toward the medical field, I have gained valuable experience as to the types of projects that are undertaken in the field of research. Now that I have gone through this experience, I will know what to expect if ever I collaborate with researchers in the future, or what to expect in case I decide to participate in research as a medical professional. Due to my experiences in lab, I now feel much more confident in making career-related decisions due to the amount of information I learned from my peers, as well as the things I learned from my own work in the lab. As I continue in the lab, I also hope to gain valuable clinical experience that will help me solidify my decision to continue my pursuits toward the medical field.
Learning Goal 2: Learn how to efficiently contribute in a professional lab and research setting.
In the fall, I was worried about falling behind my peers in the lab, as well as not being as efficient as those around me as they performed their work. I think this is mostly because of my lack of experience at the time. Looking around, I felt that everyone was so adept at their roles, and I felt like I was slowing them down as they worked. However, as I continued working at the lab, I began to receive more and more comments that my fellow lab members' work was made quicker and easier because of my contributions. In fact, I even became able to perform many of the tasks that I was given independently, thereby saving my lab members the time required to do the entire task. I have since come to realize that much of this simply came from learning the different processes involved in the lab. With more work and experience in the lab, I was able to perform the tasks I was given much more efficiently and much more accurately. Now that I have gone through this lab, I feel like I will have much more confidence in going into my next professional lab or research setting because of my work in this one. As I continue my work in the lab beginning in the summer, I will begin to have different roles in managing a mouse colony, something that will be a new experience for me, but will help me in both my management contribution skills as well as my communication skills as I share my findings at meetings with my supervisors.
Learning Goal 3: Learn how to solve complex problems in a professional setting.
In the fall, I was worried about my aptitude toward completing tasks assigned to me, especially with any sort of efficiency. I was also worried about the quality of my work, as I did not know if I could learn to be as capable as the other members of my lab. Throughout the semester, my supervisors in the lab have done a terrific job of pacing me in my work, and allowing me to solve complex problems on my own while still providing me the assistance I needed. They had a very well structured approach to my learning environment, and I felt like they greatly helped me to develop my problem solving skills. I felt like I not only was accomplishing something, but I also understood what I was accomplishing. In addition, their constructive criticism and challenging questions directed toward me along the way allowed me to develop a sense of accomplishment as I completed my goals and understood my actions with a little help from their guidance. For example, rather than outright explaining some of the purposes of the surgical procedures that my supervisor was performing, she went through some details about similar procedures, the reasons they were performed, and allowed me and my fellow LHSI member at the lab to conclude the purpose of the different procedures that she was performing. As I continue to work in my current lab, as well as moving on to clinical work related to my medical school application goals, I plan to continue to challenge myself with solving some of the complex problems that may arise as I work.
Many of my goals have stayed the same throughout my year at my LHSI internship. However, almost all of them have been updated in some way, as I have grown so much over the course of this year. My major goal of ultimately applying to medical school has remained relatively unchanged throughout the course of the year. However, I now have a much better understanding of the ways I need to do that. Overall, I learned many things about the application process. For example, one of my supervisors at the lab showed me the IU School of Medicine Early Acceptance Program. While this is something I may have discovered on my own in the future, I find it very helpful to know this kind of information as early as possible so that I can think about my application early rather than having to worry about it at the last minute. In addition, I learned a lot from my supervisors about steps beyond the application to medical school. I learned a lot about the fundamentals and structure of medical school, and it was vastly different than I expected. I now feel much more prepared logistically for the steps I will have to take further on in my career on my path to become a medical professional. I have also come a long way when considering the other goals I set earlier in the semester. When I talked with my supervisor, we both agreed that the best time for me to shadow him would be over the summer. Since I plan to continue working at my internship after LHSI, I think this will be especially beneficial as I continue my path toward medical school, as it will give me personal experience with what I hope to do in the future. While I believe that I have worked hard at my internship, as well as working hard to maintain my GPA, I believe that these are goals that I need to continue working on as I continue my path toward medical school. My final, and most immediate goal, was to increase my efficiency as I continued at my internship. I believe that I have accomplished this goal in the past few months, though this is something that I can always work on, so I will continue to do my best to strive toward bettering myself in terms of efficiency within my internship.
Learning
In the fall, I felt like the skill on the survey where I already felt most confident was receiving, critically analyzing, and applying constructive feedback from my supervisor and others at the internship. I still believe that this is one of my stronger skills that I continue to display at my internship. Taking and applying feedback is, in my opinion, one of the most important things you can do in the workplace. If you make no effort to fix mistakes or address areas where your supervisor points out you need to work on, then you will never improve and your work may not meet the satisfactory standard that your supervisor expects from you.
In the fall, I felt like the skill that I most needed to work on was independence. Although I was often assigned tasks to do independently, many of the tasks that I performed required supervision, and I still made mistakes occasionally. I felt like even though I spent more time in the lab and became more independent, I still felt like I required assistance often enough that it was one of my weaker skills and that it was definitely something that I needed to improve upon by the end of the year. I would say that independence is the area that I feel like I improved upon the most in the course of this year. I went from having to be under constant supervision to a state where I am now trusted to perform tasks almost completely, if not entirely, on my own. Especially as my direct supervisor prepares me for the day that she plans on leaving while I will continue to do some of her work, I have been trusted with a lot more independent responsibility recently. Being given this responsibility is somewhat intimidating, but overall, I think it will improve my skill of independence, and it will allow me to become a much better contributor in my lab than I was at the beginning of the semester.
In the fall, I used my strengths to make work in my lab more efficient. Although I myself had not reached the speed and experience of the other members of the lab, I was able to assist and double check tasks that allowed the efficiency of the lab to increase while I still learned more about the processes involved in increasing efficiency in other ways. This leads me to another point. Throughout the year, I feel I have become much more proficient in both the tasks I accomplished independently and together with a group of people. However, I feel like I may still need to develop my skills in work I do as a team. Sometimes I feel like my work in groups becomes that of an assistant rather than a collaborator. While this is not a bad thing, and there are certainly times where assistants are needed, I may need to work on working collaboratively and adding more insight into projects I do together. This isn't something that I would say was a negative experience at my internship, as this allowed me to grow and learn as I assisted. However, I would say that this is something that I may need to focus more on as I continue my path toward becoming a medical professional.
This internship has helped me grasp a larger view of my future potential. The PI of my lab who is connected to LHSI works in both a clinical and a research setting, so talking with him and learning about all of the different paths and opportunities possible for medical students and students in science has been very informative. Talks like this with my PI, along with my other lab members on various points of their career path, have helped me see how varied of an approach you can take while still being in the same general field and working together to accomplish a similar goal. My career options are much broader than I imagined when I first began this internship. After two semesters at my internship, I have gained a lot of insight as to the many options I have, and I have narrowed down my options a lot while still keeping my perspective as broad as possible. While I don't feel as though I have everything in my life planned out at this moment, the experience I gained at my internship has made me more prepared to make those decisions on my own when the time comes for me to make them, and that is an invaluable piece of knowledge that I'm sure I will be glad to have in the future when I have to make these difficult, yet important decisions.