Internship

Workplace

I believe being compassionate is a strength especially when you are working in healthcare. I acquired this skill from working with my father who runs two charity organizations. Volunteering to help my community and watch them have a better lifestyle motivated me to work for the betterment of the society. 

Last year, I was part of 1st year Research Immersion Program at IUI which introduced me to research. I was trained in Social and Behavioral research which encouraged me to join LHSI and think about a potential career in research. 

Additionally, I am a Secretary for The Neuroscience Club at IUI, a dancer at Namaste Indy IUI, a First Year Seminar Mentor, and a fundraiser for my father's charity organization. These valuable experiences have allowed me to develop communication, leadership, teamwork, public speaking, marketing, and many other skills that I want to apply to this internship. 

Why did your efforts, no matter how small or routine, matter to getting the bigger job done? 

I was the youngest and fairly new member of the team. I was a learner and I still am. I have always received instructions from my supervisor and worked. The biggest task of our project is to create forms for surveys. I have worked on forming questions and making sure they are in the right cohort. It is important to make sure that all the questions asked make sense which gives accurate results. Helping my supervisor design the questions and take the surveys has been a valuable contribution from my side and a valuable experience for me. 

Successes and Challenges

In November, add the successes you posted on the fall discussion board. When I first visited the Myotonic Dystrophy clinic and saw myotonic dystrophy patients in person, I felt successful because I could recognize the symptoms and identify issues in their ultrasounds in person, which I had learned about through research papers. I was able to see some symptoms like droopy eyes or the use of a wheelchair (as losing muscle fibers, especially in the legs is an indication).

My second success was finishing a challenging task: qualitative coding, where we transcribed interviews. My supervisors guided me through these learning processes. I learned how to review interview transcripts and organize them into categories which is known as qualitative coding. However this was my first time working on this assignment, I was a slow learner, but they were patient with me. 

 In February, you'll edit and add to the successes you had this year. Tell us about a time when you were successful, make sure to be specific. What have you learned from these successes that you can apply to succeeding in your future academic and career goals? 

A success that I am proud of is being able to deal with patients who are making End of Life decisions. At first, when I switched to this project, I was very hesitant. My work is to survey patients if they have filled forms like living will, POLST, DNR, etc. As part of the survey, I have to ask questions like what can be barriers for filling those forms, and most responses are emotional. I have learned to compartmentalize and use my time to work in making End of Life discussions easier instead of worrying and getting it into my head. I learned to compartmentalize. I learned to sympathize with my patients and still work on my project.

In November, add the challenges you posted on the fall discussion board. 

The first challenge I faced was transcribing interviews as I said before. Reading and interpreting the interviews were hard as every interviewee had a different take on how they discussed end-of-life issues. It was hard trying to categorize those interview transcripts into codes and categorizing them. As I said before, my colleagues and supervisors guided me through the entire process.

The second challenge was working remotely. Since there was less supervision to hold me accountable, I procrastinated and slacked. I came up with certain strategies to help me stay on track with my internship work. Like, I kept track of my work where I saw them regularly and created small deadlines for big projects to make it look easier to work. I also asked my friends to hold me accountable for the work I've been doing. I also learned that I should ask for help more instead of trying to figure it out by myself, like texting my colleagues, emailing my supervisor, or even googling it.

In February, you'll edit and add to the challenges you had this year. Tell us about a time when you experienced a challenge, make sure to be specific. How did your internship team help you learn or overcome obstacles?

A challenge I had I was as mentioned earlier, I had trouble discussing end-of-life decisions. I felt very emotional. I overcame it by learning to compartmentalize. As a researcher, it is our primary duty to work to improve the quality of life. I learned from my supervisor and peers that we should focus on making end-of-life decisions easier and being emotional about our work will prevent us from doing our duty.