Capstone Internship

Fairbanks School of Public Health Center for Health Policy - Patient Recruitment Intern

January 2022 - Present

At my time with the Center for Health Policy, I had the pleasure of working alongside clinical staff in recruiting patients for IU R. M. Fairbanks School of Public Health and the Regenstrief Institute research study. I am primarily stationed at the IU Health Physicians Family & Internal Medicine - Georgetown Clinic location.

The focus of this study was on adults seeking primary care, their socials needs and risks. This study is being conducted because a better understanding of the occurrence of social needs could support more effective services.

Primary Responsibilities

My primary responsibilities is recruiting patients for our survey, and document various information into the database that is being used. This internship has given me the opportunity to collaborate with patients and colleagues of different backgrounds to meet a common goal. High quality services.

Learning Objectives

Demonstrate and gain transferable skills in a professional work environment.

Throughout my time at the Georgetown Clinic, I have demonstrated several of my transferable skills from my past work experience. Though this internship gave me a new transferable skill by working with the database to input patients information.

Communicate effectively with diverse stakeholders individually and in group settings using verbal, written, and electronic modes of communication.

Over the semester, my team and I have had meetings with our researcher, Dr. Joshua Vest and our supervisor, Amber Blackmon MPH, on how we can promote the research study and meet the goal of 1,500 surveys completed. We decided on making a sign to help grab patients attention and give them a resource to reach out if they had any further questions.

Work effectively individually or in a team-setting to accomplish assigned tasks.

As I recruited patients, I have understood that individual and team efforts combined are what makes effective results.

Personal Development

Prior to starting my internship, I had only briefly understood social determinants of health from learning about them in a classroom setting. This internship really put into perspective and the real reasoning why researchers continue to study these factors.

Utilizing patients responses and getting the opportunity to speak with them, made the experience rewarding. Many of the patients who participated expressed gratitude that IU Health was demonstrating such care to their patient's. Knowing I was apart of something bigger than myself, that could result in a system to provide stronger quality of care, was an amazing feeling.

One of my areas for growth would be my time management. Talking with the patients was very moving to me and sometimes they would open up to me about personal topics. Sometimes this would effect how many surveys I completed in a day.

Academic Connections

I have taken many helpful courses during my time in the BSHSM program. One of the most helpful courses was Operations Management and Quality Improvement in Healthcare. The Center for Healthy Policy relied on data to provide better services for their patients. Quality improvement is one of the goals set for the survey, which directly relates back to the course.