Goals & Learning

Career Goals

My professional goals after completing my undergraduate degree include becoming either an optometrist or dentist, and another goal is to figure out which path I want to take. Both of these career paths would entail attending a professional school after obtaining my Bachelor of Science in Biology.

Out of all the careers in the science field, these two are the ones I have felt drawn to due to the separate subset of health based care they provide and the environment of work. I was never interested in working in a hospital setting or in an office with cubicles, but working in a clinic as a doctor of some sort sounded more appealing in terms of the type of work environment I want. I also find that it would be interesting to specialize in one area of the anatomy, such as the eyes or mouth which can often have important affects on a person's health. Along with that, I want to be there to help others with their health problems in a way that makes them feel safe and cared for.

In terms of how sure I am of these career options, currently I am leaning more towards optometry due to the different experiences I have heard from those I know, but I still want to explore more about being a dental student and compare that to what I know about pursuing a career in optometry.

To figure out which path I want to pursue, and whether that path is the right one for me, I will use different opportunities to help me make those decisons. One of those oportunities include shadowing an optometrist or dentist to see which career seems to be the one for me. Another opportunity is my LHSI internship where I get to interact with dental students and get their outlook on what the life of a dental student is like. I can also use networking to ask others at the clinic who are in the healthcare field about whether they can get me in touch with someone is in the optometry field, which would give me a better perspective on that aspect.

How My Internship Experience Has Effected my Career Goals

After spending time interning in the Comprehensive Pain Assessment Clinic (CoPAC), I have been able to gain beneficial experiences to help cement my career plans and goals. Before beginning LHSI, I had been debating on what type of a workplace I would be able to see myself working in and actually enjoy when it came to my job. Through this internship I was actually able to work in a clinic setting, which confirmed my preference of workplace since I realized that I very much enjoyed the being part of a close-knit team environment where I was able to be involved and active as a member of the clinic. Seeing the way all the different professions collaborated when it came to providing patient care helped me confirm that helping people as a care provider in a way that makes patients feel heard is exactly what I want to do.

In terms of figuring out whether I want to stick with pursuing optometry or if I want to explore the idea of becoming a dentist, working at my internship site also helped me make a solid decision in this area. I was able to talk to different dental students and compare my interests with what they would share about their experiences and see their roles in patient care. By being able to see the way oral health was being tied in with the patient check-ups, I was able to realize that this is what I would want to do but with a patient's vision needs instead. Along with that, hearing the views of the dental learners and the rest of the team in the clinic, which includes a physician, physical therapist, nurse and others made me realize that I wanted to learn the skills they all had when it came to patient care, and provide that care in an area that interests me. Therefore, my internship site has helped me realize that I would like to pursue optometry through the discussions and observations I made in clinic when it came to a career I may want to pursue.

At this point, I feel pretty confident in using my self knowledge and preferences to make career related choices. Interning at the clinic has helped me realize that I like a clinic setting that is based on team based care. Along with that, speaking with dental and medical students has helped me realize that my interests may lay more in the study of eyes, and that realization has helped me create a plan of things to do next such as shadowing optometrists and speaking with optometry learners as well. The internship site has also helped me feel confident in my skills of communication, decision making, working in a team, and handling responsibility on my own, which are important skills that I will be able to take with me in the future.

Goals

Career Goal:

Start thinking about the whether I want to pursue optometry or dentistry, and create a complete application with good academics and experiences in order to apply to optometry or dental school.

--> This was a goal I had set for myself when applying for LHSI and rethinking my goals in the beggining of the internship. Throughout the year, I have been able to figure out the optometry is the path I want to take, which I have realized through working at my internship site and also talking to some people pursuing optometry. The study of eyes has always seemed very intricate and powerful to me, which has increased my curiosity and want for knowledge as I have began learning more and more in my undergraduate studies about the human body and specifically the eyes. On the other hand, while being a dentist also seems like a very interesting path to take with its own benefits, I don't feel that pull towards seeing myself as a dentist in future in comparison with being an optometrist, which has made me realize that being an optometrist is likely where my heart lies.

Now that I have been able to solidify my career goals, the main objective is to figure out what needs to be done in order to get there and what progress needs to be made. In order to do that, the timeline and list of things to do below will aid me in increasing my arsenal of knowledge and experiences.

Timeline

Right Now:

Research optometry schools and find their requirements/prerequisites. --> In Progress: My first choice is IU School of Optometry and I have looked into the prerequisites I will need, which I am on track for. I have also looked into 2-3 other schools and their prerequisites, but I should focus on narrowing down which 3-4 schools are at the top of my list.
Look more into the OAT, specially when I should take it and what sources I should use to study for it. --> In Progress: I am deciding to take the OAT likely in late spring next year and will hopefully begin studying in the summer and fall this year. As it gets closer to summer I will begin looking more into different studying resources.
Make a meeting with my advisor and PREPs to see if I am on the right track to reach my goal of getting into optometry school. --> Complete: Both my advisor and PREPs confirmed that I am on track in terms of course requirements for optometry school. PREPs was also helpful in terms of providing me with resources when it came to gaining more experiences and extracurriculars.

Spring 2025:

Find a TA opportunity for next semester: Complete: I have reached out to the professor of BIOL-K101 lab to see if I can be an undergraduate lab TA, and I will be picking my schedule soon.
Apply to volunteer in the summer --> Complete: I have completed the application to be a volunteer at Riley Hospital for Children, and will be attanding orientation soon.
Contact optometrists to shadow--> Complete: I have talked to an optometrist who has given me the opportunity to begin shadowing at the end of the spring semester.
Contact research labs to begin a capstone project next school year --> Complete: I have talked with my lab supervisor from the First Year Research Immersion Program I was part of and they are open to me conducting research in their lab for my capstone. I have now submitted my capstone proposal to be reviewed.

This Time Next Year:

Studying for the OAT
Working on my capstone project and gaining more research experience
Be a teacher assistant for K101 lab and gain experience working with students and helping others succeed academically.

Things to do in the Summer & Time Remaining at IU-Indy

Summer:

Volunteer at the Riley Children's Hospital for ~50 hours
Shadow an optometrist weekly
Continue at my LHSI internship site through the summer
Start studying for the OAT
Volunteer outside of school through programs such as Keep Indianapolis Beautiful

Time Remaining at IUI

Keep attending club meetings and volunteering opportunities
Shadow a different optometrist to gain more experiences
Look into volunteering throughout the school year at Riley to gain more than 50 hours
TA for more than one semester if possible
Visit advisor and PREPs again to look into OAT prep courses

Internship Goals

Learning Goal #1: I want to get better at communicating and talking to others confidently

Relevance: My goal for the future is to likely become an optometrist, which will include a lot of communication, not just with the patients, but also with those at the job or clinic. Knowing how to feel confident enough to engage with others would prepare me to be in situations where I would have to be in a discussion with someone and efficiently explain my thoughts. Learning this skill of communication would also help in any other path I may take on my journey to being a medical professional.

Progress: After more than a semester at my internship site, I have definitely seen myself gain some more confidence when it comes to communication. Some of the accomplishments I have had in this area include asking questions in team huddles, speaking with pateints, sharing my thoughts with team members, observing and partaking in interprofessional learning, and being in charge of a team huddle. All of these different experiences helped me communicate in different environments and with new people. For example, not only did I get to take on a leadership role by running the debrief at the end of clinic one day, but I also got to communicate in a team of professionals specifically. Besides from communicating with a team, I also had the chance to be part of an interprofessional learning session which included a learning experience with dental and nursing students. This different experience outside the clinic gave me the opportunity to communicate with learners who were at a different stage in their education then me. Throughout these communication experiences, the main difficulty I had was the fear of saying the wrong thing and also stepping up to talk in front of the team. However, my supervisor did a great job at giving me many chances to step out of my comfort zone and she would always remind me that the clinic was a psychologically safe place where I could feel free to make mistakes. From here, the next step for me will be to try leading more debriefs and also asking more questions since I still sometimes hesitate when it comes to voicing all my questions.

Action Plan:

1. Observing how health professionals in the clinic interact with one another and patients

2. Observing communication during a team huddle

3. Learning how to create an infographic for the center or patients in relation to the topic of maybe communication and distribution of resources and aid.

Learning Goal #2: Learn about team-based care and what the responsibilities are of individuals in a team-based setting compared to a traditional medical setting.

Relevance: This goal can help me in the future by giving me an idea of a more progressive way for clinics to be ran in the future. Rather than having the different care-givers and administrators very segregated in a clinic setting as is normally seen, it would be interesting to have a more interconnected workplace to get different perspectives that may not have been considered if everyone worked separately. This could be useful in an optometry clinic as well since having those connections and interactions with others in the clinic would help create more community and togetherness in providing care, which can be something I may want to implement in a clinic where I work at in the future.

Progress: The accomplishments I have made for this goal include understanding through observations and shadowing how each of the team members' roles work in the clinic. For example, I've been able to shadow the residents, physicians, and the physical therapist in our clinic when they meet patients. Seeing the way they lead discussions, listen to the patients, and use specific language to communicate with the patients has really helped in my understanding of how a team based clinic can be beneficial to patient care. Seeing the team come together in discussions when doing "hand-offs" from one team member to another is what specifically has highlighted the significance of a team since I get to see members build off of each others ideas to come up with the best plan for the patient. In terms of difficulties in completing the goal of understanding team based care, I'd say it was a bit unique the first week or two of my internship being in a clinic since I had never seen a team with residents, physicians, nurses, a chaplain, a physical therapist, and others come together to provide care in just one visit. Therefore it wasn't necessarily a difficulty, but it was definitely a new experience for me to observe the way a team based clinic operates efficiently. The next step in order to achieve a complete understanding of how the clinic works would maybe be shadowing the rest of the team members who I haven't had the chance to shadow such as the nurse in the clinc.

Action Plan:

1. Observing how the clinics function together in an efficient way

2. Observing how the different roles come together in order to provide care for one patient

3. Observe to see if the doctors talk to others in the team huddle in a way that everyone can understand (not too much medical jargon) and start adding those skills into my own way of speaking and explaining to create an inclusive way of talking with people of other professions.

Learning Goal #3: Learn how to determine social determents of health that patients may deal with and learn how to find solutions to those issues.

Relevance: Being able to identify social health detriments that patients may be facing will help me be more accommodating in the care and resources I can provide in the future as someone in the career of aiding people. Due to the different backgrounds and situations my future patients may come from, I will have to learn how to be unbiased, compassionate, and most importantly have that skill of finding a solution that works for everyone. All of these are skills I will be able to work towards at this internship.

Progress: The biggest accomplishment I have had in this area was through my internship project, which was creating information sheets for sober living and recovery housing. Since many times patients in the clinic will have external issues besides from the pain they are in the clinic for, that has created an importance to compile resources the clinic could have available to help patients. Therefore, creating the info sheets helped me really understand the help available for this significant issue and it also gave me the opportunity to be an active contributor in finding solutions to these issues, which was part of my goal. The biggest difficulty I had in completing this goal was figuring out what were reliable resources when it came to finding sites to aid in different areas of social detriments in relation to housing for example. However, I was able to get the sites on the info sheets checked by my team members to help with validating the resources I was putting together in relation to housing detriments. The next steps I will perhaps be taking include maybe looking into other social detriment resources, specifically in the area of safe home resources for LGBTQ+ members, which I could in the future create another info sheet package for. It would also help to do more literature studies in the area of other social detriments to gain a better understanding about the issues and what is being done.

Action Plan:

1. Understand and watch how the team works to find solutions for those who face dire external situations (ex: housing issues, money problems, violence etc), and how having different team perspectives can help with coming up with the best care or solution.

2. Compile a document of care facilities and homes with addresses and phone numbers to create a resource sheet that patients can take home.

3. Do a literature study about how different social detriments of health play a role in healthcare and what is being done to tackle the issue.

Learning

Skills Utilized From Survey

FALL

Teamwork: "Demonstrates adequate teamwork and willingness to work with others; contributes to completion of a group task."--> I have been using this skill by working and communicating in a team based care setting whenever I think I can help. For example, by being involved in the team huddle with the health care professionals and other team members, it can give a sense of team environment even if I am not yet contributing a lot to the discussions. I have also been able to see some patients with the team and play my role in the team based care being provided by listening to the patients and being involved in the discussion with my supervisor after seeing the patient.
Constructive Criticism and Feedback: "Seeks and welcomes feedback. Critically reflects on feedback, uses it as a starting point for further discussion and proposes alternatives".--> I have been able to confidently accept any feedback I have received on the projects I have been working on. For example, when making information sheets for the clinic I was able to receive feedback on formatting and the information needed in the sheets, and I was able to work to implement this feedback without feeling negatively. I worked to utilize the advice and feedback that was given to me by my supervisor and others, and doing that is a good way for me to improve and add to my skillset.

SPRING

Independence: "Plans and performs tasks mostly independently, asks for help when needed." --> Since the fall, I have definitely been able to improve in this area through a variety of new experiences which have made me more independent. One example of this was the Wellness Fair, where I got the opportunity to one-on-one run through a physical therapy checklist with patients at the fair, which provided me a sense of independence since I was able to lead a patient interaction while still knowing that other leaners and my supervisor were still there if I had any questions. Another time I showed independence was when I was able to run a team debrief by myself. I asked the questions and recored the answers that the team gave me, which showed independence since I was able to pull up the debrief sheet and the file to record patient scores without anyone urging me to do so the day our clinical coordinator, who usually has those responsibilities, was away. These examples show growth since I never would have thought in the beginning of the semester that I would feel comfortable doing these type of things independently and that highlights the way I have stepped out of my comfort bubble.
Integration and Application: "Adapts and applies previously understood information, concepts, experiences, qualitative and quantitative techniques gained in one situation to new situations to solve problems or explore issues." --> During the beginning of the fall semester I hadn't yet had enough experiences to apply to different scenarios. However, at this point I have had enough time to gain and apply new skills. One example of this was how I was able to better my skills of using Canva to create my info sheets, which provided me with the necessary skills I needed to make the elevator pitch visual for this website. I was also able to apply those creative skills to an infographic I had to make for a project in my cell biology class, and both of these scenarios show how this internship provided me with new learning experiences which I was able to apply in different areas.

Skills to Work on From Survey

FALL

Independence: "Depends mainly on supervisor or teammate for setting out the task, but performs it mostly independently". --> So far, since this is the beginning of the internship, I mostly rely on tasks and instructions from my supervisor and teammates, but I am able to preform my tasks on my own. I would like to work towards being more independent and stepping out of my comfort bubble a bit. I can do this by planning out my own plans for a task, which could be something like doing literature reviews for different issues and using that knowledge in the infographics that I can make for the clinic. I can also work to be more involved vocally when there are discussions, rather than relying on my supervisor when in a group of professionals.
Confronts Challenges and Failure: "Often uses available resources to confront challenges and take risks. Handles situations that may lead to failure as they arise". --> It can often be difficult for me to be completely comfortable with dealing with failures and something that is outside my comfort zone. However, this is a skill I want to work on through this internship, and I can do that by speaking up more in debriefs and discussions even when I may see speaking in front of a group as intimidating and be scared of making a mistake. I will try to keep in mind that it is okay to make a mistake while trying to communicate with others, and do my best to keep pushing forward.

SPRING

Communication: "Uses appropriate and professional oral and written language; written and oral language is correct and functional." --> Even though I have seen a lot of improvement in my verbal communication skills, I still believe I have room to improve and I also would like to work on my written communication skills. To grow in these skills, I may try to read some literature related to my internship site or interests and try writing a review of what I found. Once I have done this, I can get my supervisor or someone else with written communication skills to read my work and provide me with feedback on how to improve my skills.
Problem-Solving and Perseverance: "Motivated and shows ownership of the project or task. Overcomes an occasional setback independently and otherwise seeks resources and help to overcome challenges." --> I am able to show ownership of a task or project, such as creating the info sheets for the clinic, but I still struggle with facing setbacks independently at times. I have a great team at my internship site that is always there to support me. However, I would also like to get better at facing setbacks independently as well in case there is a time in my personal and professional life where I don't have a team with me. In order to work on that task, I may ask my supervisor what she would recommend to do in order to improve in this area, and independently, I will try to make a list of solutions myself before I get help from someone else when confronted with a problem.

My Internship, Coursework and Major

FALL

Working at the team based clinic has taught me more about how different aspects such as not just genetic inheritance, but also environmental factors, can play a big role in the type of health issues an individual can develop, which is seen through the pateints that come to the comprehensive pain clinic. This concept of genetic and environmental factors is something I have been learning a lot about in my Genetics class, and seeing these concepts in real life has helped put things into perspective for me. In terms of how my internship has helped me gain a deeper understanding of my major which is biology, I have been able to observe how concepts of biology are the basis of some of the discussions and care provided. For example, whether there be the biochemical aspect through the medication prescribed to patients, or the cellular biology aspect through the diagnosis made at the cellular level, I get to see different branches of my major throughout my internship.

SPRING

After being at my internship site for a bit longer I have also noticed other ways in which my internship site can connect to my coursework and major. Being in a team based clinic has taught me a lot about what it means to be a good team member when it comes to listening and contributing. In my classes such as Cell Biology and Organic Chemistry it is very common for my classmates and I to collaborate when it comes to working on practice problems or study sessions, which connects to that skill of teamwork to help all of us succeed together. I have also been able to gain a deeper understanding of my major through how different areas of biology can include opportunities for people to work together to make discoveries or find solutions, and therefore having that skill of teamwork is a great skill in order to be a great biologist.

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