Shadowing

The value of teamwork and clearly defined roles is most apparent to me in the operating room. While shadowing Dr. Dashnaw, a neurosurgeon at Beaumont, I learned about the importance of having a well-coordinated team of healthcare workers during surgery. Dr. Dashnaw led a team of five, each with an important role to play. For example, a surgical PA assisted with the operation by cauterizing minor blood vessels and suctioning away smoke from tissues while a circulating nurse opened and distributed equipment, so the rest of the team that is scrubbed in is able to maintain a sterile field during the operation and work with minimal interruption. Each member of the surgical team communicates with each other incredibly smoothly and follows a standard list of procedures to ensure everyone understands what is going on. For example, before the beginning of the surgery, a nurse reads out patient information and confirms the type of surgery to be done which is affirmed by each member of the team. These central tenets of communication, teamwork, and roles are a key part of the operating room and contribute greatly to the efficiency with which surgical teams work.

Clinical Lab Assistant/Phlebotomist at Ascension Providence Hospital

As a phlebotomist, I serve the role of the medical laboratory's main contact with patients. As such, I am responsible for communicating with patients and helping fill in gaps in their knowledge regarding tests that their doctors and nurses have ordered for them. I am mainly responsible for collecting blood samples from patients; however, the lab as a whole offers a valuable contribution to the healthcare team.

Aspiring Surgeons eBoard

As President of AS this year, I had to help navigate the club through a post-COVID participation lull. I was able to help the club stay together and thrive with bi-weekly hybrid events and was able to double in-person attendance by the end of the semester. To do this, I collaborated with the rest of the eBoard team to ensure that everyone had a clear role suited to their strengths. Since each person was comfortable in their positions, we were much better able to coordinate to set up and host events.

Swallow the Moon Publications

I wrote and submitted an original poem titled "My First Love" as well as an original photograph to the Swallow the Moon student journal. I had to communicate with the editorial board and refine my poem to meet the board's specifications. The board and Oakland's students worked together as a team and were able to create a full journal of students' work. My works were included in both the 11th and 12 editions of the journal. I value opportunities to be creative and express myself, which is why I made a submission to the journal.

Michigan Medical Education Day (MMED):

MMED is a conference of all Michigan medical school admissions representatives along with doctors and current medical students who come together to offer wisdom and advice to undergraduates looking to apply in the coming years. The conference is held in Grand Rapids.

At the conference, I improved my communication skills by learning about the interview process for medical school applications. We learned about the role of the physician in the healthcare field and about other alternative careers in healthcare. This event also fits the pillar of teamwork since we learned about how doctors can form partnerships and work together to open a practice and about how nets of specialists come together to treat patients with experience from different perspectives and schools of medicine. I also learned more about the advantages of being a doctor, namely the independence and autonomy as well as the complexity of the job which is mentally-stimulating enough to give meaning to the work without making it overly frustrating. These characteristics highlight my own values and are what make the role of the physician appealing to me. We talked about medical ethics and also about how a student should not apply to medical school only for the pay since there are many other options available that pay well without requiring so much work. Anyone who applies to medical school should truly want to work as a doctor for the intrinsic values it fulfills and the sense of meaning it gives practitioners.

OU Has Talent:

I participated in the Oakland University Has Talent competition and performed an excerpt from "Arabesque" by Claude Debussy (link below).

Music is a language that knows no boundaries and is often one of the most potent ways to communicate emotions, motives, and meanings. A skilled musician draws from techniques of delivery and articulation that parallel those used by powerful orators to sway an audience. I value music as a medium for artistic expression, communication of raw emotions, and self-therapy. 

ECLIPSE Mentor/Activities Board:

As an ECLIPSE Mentor, I was responsible for communicating regularly with my mentees, coordinating and curating monthly meetings, and being available when needed. I did my best to create a strong team bond with my group and ensure that we were always helping each other learn about ourselves and grow to be the best we can be. I was mindful of my role as a leader and offered knowledge gained from my experiences at OU and elsewhere to my group. I was responsible for mentoring first-year students as well as seniors and had to be mindful of their differing levels of experience to offer meaningful information and discussion at meetings.

Like most people, I was apprehensive about attending college at first. I had a difficult time in high school with staying motivated enough to conquer the massive workload while still taking care of myself, and I expected that college could only be worse. I took many shortcuts in high school for the sake of academic performance and had to re-evaluate my strategies after starting college. I tried to share these experiences with my mentees and offer advice and support with similar worries to make sure they know that they are not alone in this journey. I helped my younger mentees complete a successful transition to college and solidify their visions for the future; I also helped older mentees find new opportunities on campus and advised them with long-term career and academic decision-making. I value mentorship and supporting others who are going through impactful parts of their lives. We are all human and share a common journey in life. We should value each other and offer each other whatever help and guidance we can.

Aspiring Surgeons eBoard:

I served as the treasurer on the executive board of the Aspiring Surgeons (AS) organization. Since AS is a smaller organization and lacks the more intricate infrastructure of more established student organizations, our eBoard worked as a team and collaborated on every action taken by the organization. While we each specialized in certain tasks and roles, everyone had a say in the direction taken by the club. My role focused on managing logistics and making sure events ran smoothly. I was responsible for communicating with club members through the event page on GrizzOrgs and making sure events were accessible to anyone who was interested. This also aligns with my values since I think that it is important that everyone should have an opportunity to interact with professionals in the field they hope to join. AS made it possible for anyone at OU to hear from surgeons of many different specialties and explore their career options, even if they don't have any physicians or healthcare workers in their own social circles.

Phlebotomy Internship:

I completed a certification program in phlebotomy at Macomb Community College, including an internship at the Henry Ford Macomb Health Center in Chesterfield where I completed over 200+ venipunctures and sample collections. I practiced communicating with patients and establishing rapport and mutual trust before drawing blood. I learned how to comfort anxious patients while improving my technical skills. I also learned how to work as a team with other laboratory technicians to conduct tests on serum and blood cultures, so doctors can make more informed choices about treatment courses for their patients. In doing so, I learned about how different healthcare roles interact and collaborate to offer better patient care. I highly value learning skills through personal experience and feel much better prepared for a future in medicine. 

Teaching Financial Education and Investing:

In high school, I realized that students were not given a sturdy financial education nor taught the fundamentals of wealth acquisition and management. As such, I took it upon myself to self-educate. With the proper educational foundation, I found that I was immediately successful in the stock market which attracted attention from my peers. After being regularly petitioned for investing advice, I decided to create and administer a financial foundations and investing course. The course was popular and I continue to teach today.

In creating a curriculum, I was responsible for communicating new information to my students and offering them opportunities to practice new skills. I tried to encompass everything from basic budgeting techniques to advanced options trading. I highly value financial education and believe that it is something that should be taught from a young age and be accessible to everyone. I priced my course extremely modestly and did not attempt to make a profit despite putting months of effort into creating and maintaining it so that anyone who wanted to better manage their own finances had the opportunity to learn, even if they were high school students without income.

Coaching Academic Games:

In elementary and middle school, I was a member of the St. Lawrence Academic Games (AG) Team where I worked hard to win over 10 state and 5 national championships in various academic disciplines including 2 national championships as Most Outstanding Elementary/Middle Team. This period of my life truly defined my academic foundations and nurtured my curiosity and passion for learning. It is for this reason that I decided to return to the St. Lawrence Academic Games Team as a coach in more recent years.

Working as a team with the other coaches and under the two head coaches, I am responsible for helping kids learn the rules of each of over 6 games (encompassing Math, Set Theory, Language Arts, Social Studies and English) and become proficient enough to compete and win at district, state, and national levels (see below for an informational handout with a list of the team's many championships). I was forced to make changes to my communication tools to connect better with a younger audience. I understood my role as a teacher and mentor for these kids in an impactful stage of development and did my best to provide them with everything they needed to succeed. The kids I help coach are extremely talented and intelligent and have influenced me as much or more than I have influenced them. 

Being a player on the AG team had been a very formative period of my life, and I still highly value my experiences on the team over a decade later so much so that I now try to share those experiences with a new generation of kids. One's childhood sets the foundation for the rest of life, and a passion for learning and personal growth is one of the strongest traits you can help a child cultivate.

CHEER Lab:

The CHEER Lab focuses on community-based participatory research in the Pontiac area to address social determinants of health and reduce health disparities. The CHEER Lab's emphasis on serving the community in a tangible way appeals to my personal values. Research assistants needed to communicate between ourselves and ensure everyone understands their own roles and responsibilities. For every task, we needed to work as a team and were often responsible for double-checking each other's work. As a member of the CHEER lab, I was offered opportunities to practice interview transcription/analysis and data manipulation/analysis.

Communication:

To communicate well, we use symbols and signs. We need to organize our ideas well, so they flow and are easily understood. We break down our problems into bite-size pieces called “words” and transferred them to another individual who then logically pieces them together to understand our message. Likewise, computer programmers need to break down a problem into simpler pieces and encode information into words, numbers, and symbols organized into lines and functions like sentences and paragraphs for a computer to understand. In some ways, communicating via programs is more difficult than traditional communication since machines are literal and have a harder time connecting the dots. For that reason, it took me a while to learn how to program, yet within a year, I was writing my own programs and even helped a literature instructor create a Romeo and Juliet quiz using C++.

I also formally studied Spanish for 4 years and continue to enjoy reading and watching Spanish literature and movies. Spanish has been useful to me working in the hospital as well since some patients are only able to communicate in their own language and I have been able to comfort patients who are confused by all that is happening around them with no one able to stay and explain to them. On the National Spanish Exam, I have consistently ranked in the 99th percentile of Spanish speakers nationwide and was certified as biliterate by the state of Michigan in May 2019. I have also been learning to read and write in Malayalam for the past year and can communicate verbally fluently.

Communication is also vital in research. In order to relay one’s findings so the knowledge that was gained can be accurately and efficiently shared, researchers need to have excellent control of language, using both words and images to share ideas and findings. Between 2017 and 2018, I researched intravenous fluid resuscitation techniques for the treatment of sepsis and was responsible for summarizing data collection, analysis, and conclusions in both a research paper and presentation.

Teamwork:

While serving as an MICU volunteer at Troy Beaumont, I have often participated in a code team and collaborated to revive a patient under cardiac arrest. In CPR, each person has a designated role to coordinate as a team and unify towards a common goal by being fully aware of each other. Providing life-saving care is life-changing for everyone involved, and I will never forget the first time I helped administer CPR.

Through Beaumont’s volunteer program, I was able to tour the helicopter hangar and talk to members of the Beaumont One Heliteam of pilots and highly trained flight nurses and paramedics. ICU nurses are highly trained to stabilize a patient and perform high acuity medical treatments and procedures in the hospital, but flight paramedics and nurses need to be able to do that in a cabin barely a tenth as spacious as ICU rooms with extremely sensitive, miniaturized instruments all while being suspended thousands of feet in the air. I spent the day talking to and learning from these heroes about working as a team in the sky.

During the summer of 2018, I completed an internship at Beaumont hospital, shadowing and working under doctors, nurses, and physician assistants. I worked on teams often and observed countless procedures and how people of different positions link together to fulfill individual responsibilities and achieve a communal goal. For example, when patients that can’t breathe on their own need to be put on a ventilator, the process of preparing the patient for the ventilator is cumbersome and requires multiple people working together.

Roles:

One of the procedures I observed during my internship at Beaumont Hospital was an intrajugular liver biopsy performed in the Interventional Radiology Unit. Drs. Blinkhorn and May worked together at first later joined by Dr. Singla and completed the procedure in a 3-hour session. A physician assistant and a nurse also helped by setting up the equipment for the procedure and preparing the patient which helped me see how different people in different positions work together doing different tasks to accomplish a shared goal. The procedure was atypical for the doctors, so it took much longer than it should have, yet by working together and switching roles when one of them got tired, they were able to complete the job.