Goals and Learning

Goal 1

Goals

Becoming comfortable with the uncomfortable in professional setting.
- My career journey will be an especially long one and will be full of challenging tasks both mentally and emotionally. I know this internship site may have those moments, so I look forward to building my resilience and working through these moments in a professional, yet healthy, way.

1. With data collection, I will work on problem solving and making decisions in the moment.

2. Team meetings to discuss with the data discussion (conflicting ideas) and handling interpersonal relations

3. Managing projects with life and school in a balanced way

Spring Semester Update:

After almost two semesters at my internship site, I have definitely learned to balance my work and school assignments, though the flexibility in my internship was a great factor in this! Since I am a remote worker, I was able to work evenings and weekends when I had an especially busy week or needed extra time to study for exams. I was also able to experience challenges in each project I worked on and was able to discuss them with others during weekly meetings where we would decide new rules for data collection.

Time management in an imperative skill in any career as well as all the phases neccessary to get there. This summer, I will be able to further apply this skill as I navigate the UROP internship, summer classes and time with family and friends. In the next school year, I will also prepare to take my MCAT exam, a long process that requires clear organization and prioritization of my time and resources.

Goal 2

I hope to experience a new side of healthcare previously unknown to me, with this new experience, my goal is to observe and take note of the research that leads to a better healthcare environment.
- I think it is critical to not only be a professional in healthcare but also human. As someone who has spent a lot of time in hospitals seeing professionals treat my mom, I have seen the difference that communication about treatment, conditions, and symptoms can make in the patient and their families in having tranquility about the medical process. I too hope to learn this and apply it in the future.

1. Our study facilitates discussions in acute care and end of life scenarios, as well as management of serious illness.

2. With the Parkinson's assignment, outpatient management of Parkinson’s is encouraged.

3. Analyze the effects of the study on the care that came as a response to the “surprise” question.

Spring Semester Update:

After spending the majority of my time these two semesters reviewing medical charts, I was able to see not only the conversations patients had with their healthcare providers, but how these conversations altered their treatment options. Reading about the fears, beliefs, and hopes people discussed with chaplains, social workers, nurses, and doctors reinforced my vocation for healthcare with compassion and empathy at its center. Medicine is all about diagnosis and treatment, absolutely, but it is dependent on trust and human connections we make. I was particularly struck by this at the RESPECT conference this spring where I was able to witness the sharing of research and experiences in Palliative Medicine between different professionals in the discipline. I was also able to hear Dr. Sean Morrison lecture on the history of Palliative Medicine and the revolutionary medical improvements that have been made in the past 200 years.

Moving forward, I hope to take a more active role in this goal by continuing my research project on the differences in the perception and progression of Parkinson's in men versus women. Next year, I will also have the opportunity to present my research and share my work with professionals in the palliative medicine sector. The importance of bedside manner skills and meaningful conversations with patients is not only something I presently apply to the time I spend with my hospice patients but a skill I will continue to apply and expand on through the progression of my career.

1. Exposure to different disciplines of medicine (what information is found on medical records based on discipline)

2. Training on how to find needed information in medical charts.

3. Collecting information as a task from medical records across multiple systems.

Goal 3

To familiarize myself with charting in healthcare
- How does this goal fit into your career journey or prepare you for the future?
- Medical records are, I think, one of the most important tools medical professionals can use to properly diagnose, treat, and even cure ailments or diseases. Understanding how information is presented and why it is presented in that manner is very important.

My current carreer goal is to get into Medical school to become a Doctor! This is my goal because I am passionate about helping other's mitigate their pain and suffering through my informed decision making. I am very sure of this career option; though it will most certainly be a hard and long process, I plan to enjoy every step of the way until I reach my goals. This year, I will be sure to pay attention to the difficult decisions, conversations, and experiences that patients and doctors report. This is probably one of the hardest aspects of medicine because of the effects it has on healthcare providers who can ultimately, only do so much for their patients. Being certain that this is a risk and factor that I accept along with my career is important to me in making my decision final.

Spring Semester Update:

This is a goal I think I have met but will continue to improve on! I have overall found a way to navigate charts and feel comfortable looking for and interpreting what I find in progress notes, scanned documents, recorded conversations, etc. There is always more to learn, however; I learn new procedures, medical abbreviations, and medical conditions every day! I also feel comfortable and competent in transferring information into other systems like the REDCap system for data analysis.

Charting is a complex form of past, present, and future communication to enact the best possible care for a patient through the use of past conditions and a more comprehensive, reliable medical history. This form is ever-changing depending on the hospital, system, and new technology available. The skill of methodical searching, however, will always be necessary when reviewing electronic medical records. I will therefore always be able to adapt this skill in medical school and beyond.

Reflection on LHSI Application Responses:

Last spring, I spoke about the connections I hoped to make with not only my peers but professionals who could lend me advice and expertise on their individual journeys. This is something I have now seen and experienced, even with just the amazing individuals in my lab! Our team is not only interdisciplinary but also composed of individuals in all stages of their lives; some are working towards their first career while others have had multiple.

My career plans have not changed since last spring, if anything I feel they have been reinforced! I still plan to be a military doctor, and I was able to participate (and continue to do so) in the hospice volunteering class here at IUPUI. This class, along with my internship, showed me some of the areas where the healthcare system fails its most vulnerable, the elderly and terminally ill. I have learned so much from my supervisors, professors, peers, and most importantly; my hospice patients who remind me of the importance of a keen ear, a kind smile, and a shared story.

Learning

A skill I am already using from the survey that I feel very confident in is seeking feedback. My site is a very safe space and I don't feel intimidated or afraid to ask for feedback from my supervisor. Feedback I have received has been clear, concise, and tactful. Another skill I feel very confident in is independence. Our lab is mostly virtual so it is imperative to problem solve on my own with the resources I have been provided before reaching out to the team and see if the problem I am encountering is consistent with what others are finding too.

Medicine in incrdibly fast-paced. Every year, new treatments and drugs are available and one must update their skills and knowledge continuously. Feedback is a very important component of this. When others tell us where we have holes in our skillset, it is an opportunity to get better and bridge the gap. This is a skill I will use every day for the rest of my life, even outside of my career, but especially in ensuring i can provide the best possible care for my future patients.

A skill I would like to continue to work on is confronting challenges and failure. So far, our lab work has been mostly retrospective. The information we are given is what is available, what we aren't is left blank. However, we have had to discuss rules in interpreting data that is unclear or subjective as a team. After these rules are made, our data must be adjusted. At times, I have had to review 100+ charts because of these new rules. Overall though, the work is still very straightforward as we interns build our skills, especially finding specific information in the charts and interpreting it accordingly.

Challenges are not scarce for any college student, and this is especially true for students preparing for further education. Being adaptable to your goals and when you want to get there is the most probable way of reaching success in these goals. Confronting challenges is really about letting go of what cannot be controlled and finding another way around or through the problem. This is something I remind myself of constantly as I make plans for my progress towards Medical school.

I am substantially building on my limited experiences with medical records and charts every day! Because our research is retrospective, we often have to interpret notes from hospital staff, doctors, patients, and patients' family members. Understanding the context of the information that is being provided and the importance of it to the research we are doing changes based on the project. Being able to adapt your mindset every project has been a very rewarding challenge that I am excited to keep exploring!

Becoming familiar with a different condition and it's treatment every time you encounter a new disease in a patient is a skill I will most certainly have to apply and be proficient at in the future.

This internship has given me a very humanistic approach to the illnesses and conditions we discuss in my classes. Seeing how these diseases affect people not only physically but emotionally and socially has been a humbling and perspective-shifting experience. This has reinforced my passion for helping to relieve the pain and suffering of others, especially with the kindness and respect they deserve. Patients can be completely changed by diseases like Parkinson's, dementia, Alzheimer's, etc. but that doesn't mean they should be treated as anything other than adult patients who need and deserve respect, kindness, and autonomy.

Spring Update:

I have been able to work on confronting failure and challenges quite a bit these past few weeks! I have been working to develop my own research project for the summer and next year and have run into many roadblocks along the way. However, my supervisor has been incredibly kind and patient in teaching me how to navigate this task while letting me learn from my mistakes as well. This was a huge fear of mine last spring and I now see failure as a learning experience I can learn from.
A skill I can still work to improve is probably leadership. I was able to use it somewhat this past semester but I still see room for improvement. One of my lab peers who was in her second year with the lab was instrumental to my success and I hope to provide a similar leadership and assistance to the interns who join the lab next year!
I hold firm to my response from this past fall. This internship has put faces to textbooks and conversations to diagnoses. I no longer see diseases and disorders as just molecular and physiological pathways that have misfunctioned; I see the physical and psychosocial symptoms that affect that person's life and that of their loved ones as well.

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