My Internship

Learning and Skills

By working with Dr. Salih, I hope to further develop my communication skills and make my written communication skills stronger. I also hope to learn how to work more independently on projects and develop research skills that I can take with me to future classes and jobs.

With this project, I am most excited about taking the survey responses and translating that into suggestions that can make a lasting impact on IMGs. I am also excited about the opportunity to present this research at different conferences and share this information to have a broader impact.

After completing the reflection form, I realized an area I need to work on is confronting challenges and failure. I am hesitant to take on things I think may lead to failure, so I tend to avoid them. For me, the best route is to always play it safe, so I like to not place myself in risky situations, even if there may be a big payoff. I am confident in my ability to communicate well with others, work independently, and my timeliness.

This internship has helped me to practice the skills I've learned in my technical writing skills class by actively performing a literature review and creating survey questions from the review. The semester-long project for that class was to conduct a literature review about an issue a local business had, survey that business about what needs they have, and then write a recommendation report. I feel as if that class prepared me very well for this internship as I am doing all of those activities now, but in a more professional context.

Throughout the previous months of this internship, I have helped to perform the literature review that was required to form questions for our survey. I was also responsible for creating the survey questions and the layout of the survey as well as scheduling meetings to meet with a survey expert for revision. Finally, I learned how to operate Qualtrics in order to send the survey out to practicing physicians, both locally and nationally.

The Workplace

My job is mainly solitary and I do not go to an office or work with other people. I work completely independently and have weekly meetings with my site supervisor to ensure I am completing things in a timely manner and am on the right track. However, I have been able to talk with my supervisor and observe her and in my professional career, I strive to be as caring and motivated as Dr. Salih is. Even though she is very busy and has a lot of responsibilities, both in her professional life and personal life, she takes time to meet with me every week and ask how my day is and what plans I have for the coming week. When I am in her position, I wish to be as open, caring, inclusive, and productive as she is.

Coming into the internship, I did not know what to fully expect. I knew I would be conducting a literature review and sending out a survey, but I did not know how or what that process would entail. I did not expect the survey to be as intensive in the types of questions asked or the quantity.

I have been surprised by how much of the survey research is revision of the survey and trial runs. I expected to do one to two test runs of the survey to work out any kinks, but we have done many different test runs and revisions to achieve an excellent, well-thought-out survey.

This internship has allowed me to work closely with two different physicians of varying backgrounds and the very nature of the project is learning how medical graduates from different cultures and areas of the world have assimilated into United States healthcare.

Because my work is primarily solitary, there is not a workplace culture for me to comment on. However, I have experienced excellent collaboration and compassion from both of the physicians I am working with on this survey. My ideal workplace would share these same qualities, collaboration and compassion.

As a result of this survey and learning about other people and their experiences assimilating to US culture, I have become more cognizant of this when meeting new people and interacting with people in my classes and outside workplace.

Successes and Challenges

I am most proud of the survey that we have worked on over the course of the past semester. After doing a literature review, I have helped create a roughly 30 question survey that is being sent out to different medical professionals. The questions have come from similar studies done and from new topics that we wish to explore. I believe the survey is a very thorough and well-thought-out questionnaire and I am proud of the work I have done for it.

The main challenge I have faced with this project is waiting. It is difficult for me to wait for prolonged periods because I like to do everything now and as quickly as possible. It has been an adjustment for me to realize that if we want to truly create a sound research project, we must develop it slowly and spend a lot of time on it; it cannot be rushed. Going forward, I hope to try and keep busy with helping develop the paper while we are waiting on the results, this way, I will not feel like I am wasting my time.