Goals & Learning

Career Goals

As I said, I always wanted to work in Health and Science. I started college to go to medical school. That is changing as I am exposed to many career options in my field of interest. I am leaning more toward research and health policies as a career goal and hoping to be in Academia. I would use this internship as an opportunity to see if I would love doing research as a long-term career.

My internship has guided me to determine what I want to do in the future. My main career goal is to get into academic research. I gained deep knowledge about neuromuscular disorders and am hoping to continue with it. Through this research experience, has given me knowledge and skills that I am including in my college classes.

Internship Goals

Learning Goal #1: I want to learn

Relevance: Learning is the basic step to reaching your goal. You learn to understand and learn to enjoy doing it.

Action Plan: By asking questions

Progress: I have been actively seeking opportunities to get mentored by everyone in my team. During my internship, I made sure that I clarified concepts and gained deeper insights. I have also applied the knowledge I gained from academic courses in the project whenever needed. This has helped me feel confident and develop an understanding about my work.

Learning Goal #2: Make Connections

Relevance: To help me navigate this internship program and my future in this field.

Action Plan: Communicating with my peers and colleagues.

Progress: I was successful in interacting and making connections within my team. Our project was completely new to some of us, and some had experience. We helped each other out whenever needed. My team created a space where we could share ideas and perspectives freely. Through that, I was able to find opportunities to collaborate on projects and ask for questions and support whenever I needed. I believe I can count on my peers throughout my journey, even after LHSI.

Learning Goal #3: Find out if research is a potential career for me.

Relevance: Acknowledge what I can do and can't do so I can plan my career goals.

Plan: Involving more in the experience and doing my duties and responsibilities as close to perfection.

Progress: I have been actively partaking in projects, analyzing data, doing literature and chart review, and other research tasks. I have gained experience in this field. My supervisors have given feedback on my work that I will use in future experiences. I believe that I see myself pursuing research as a career. I enjoy tasks like writing, analyzing, and interpreting related to research

Learning

In October you'll complete your fall self-assessment survey (link in Canvas).Learning to assess your own growth and learning progress is an important skill you’ll need in graduate school and in the workplace. You did a similar self-assessment at orientation and will do it again in spring to continue to track your growth. In March you'll complete your spring self-assessment again (link in Canvas).

After you submit the self-assessment add the following to your ePortfolio:

- - - - Which skills on the survey are you using so far or where are you more confident already?
        I am using my teamwork and communication skills which I am pretty confident about
      - Give specific examples of how you're using those skills or how you know you're growing.
        I attend all the lab meetings and communicate with my colleagues about the work I do and what I need help with
      - March: Which skills on the survey are you using or where are you more confident since fall? Give examples of how you're using the skills or how you know you're growing.
        I am more confident in my ability to look for resources when I need them. I am a person who struggles to ask for help. However, during my internship, I learned to ask for help and consult experts whenever necessary. For example, getting help from my supervisor and a mentor to write a paper outline.
      - October: Which skills from the survey would you like to continue to work on?
        I need to work on my ability to independently work on projects. I feel like I need one to check on my progress very often.
      - What will you do to grow the skills? (specific tasks or actions).
        I think I need to stop relying on a lot on my colleagues to work on my projects and do things independently.
      - March: Which skills from the survey would you like to continue to work on? What will you do to grow the skills this semester or after LHSI?
        I gained knowledge on how to collect data, analyze, and do chart and literature reviews. These are the basics of research that will help in my future when I continue working for my internship site.

In October, add how the internship has helped you gain a deeper understanding of your coursework or major.

This internship has taught me about medical research and its procedures such as IBR, HIPAA, qualitative interviews, and coding. I have learned about myotonic dystrophies, ALS, neuropathies, and other nerve-related diseases through this experience.

In March, edit your October reflection to add more ways the internship helped you gain a deeper understanding of your coursework and major in the spring semester.

In addition, I have learned about nerve functions and how they affect muscles greatly. I have learned about neuromuscular disorder, their types, causes, and diagnosis. I have learned about ultrasound imaging and learned to identify damaged muscles/neurons in ultrasound scans. I am planning to study the use of ultrasound in the diagnosis of Neuromuscular Disorders for my UROP project next year.

After, I switched my project to Learning the Barriers of having ACP documents in the Electronic Medical Record for patients with Parkinson's Disease, I realized the importance of Advanced Care Planning and end-of-life decision-making. Patients need to have the choice to make decisions in an unfortunate incident of not being able to communicate.

WHAT'S NEXT?

I am continuing my research with my site through UROP. I am going to study the use of ultrasound scans in the diagnosis of neuromuscular disorders like Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Myotonic Dystrophy, Myopathies, and etc. I want to further study if ultrasound scans can be used as potential biomarkers for such disorders. During this research, I also realized the importance of palliative care. I want to study more about palliative care and medical ethics, so I have added a public health minor as well.

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