As seen before, I have had another exhilarating week of ISM.
On of my major goals this week, was to acquire the perspective of a career outside of medicine that still deals with public health. As mentioned before in previous reports and assessments, I have always had a deep interest and understanding in the field of science, along with a deep passion in helping those in need. Therefore, I have always leaned towards becoming a doctor, and having a one on one relationship with the patient's needs and assessing what I can do as a medical provider to help them. However, with the diverse field of public health, there are many, different professions available in this area. Deciding to be my own devil's advocate, I pondered on the thought if I was not to becoming a doctor, what are my other options? As a result, I came up with the idea of interviewing different public health professionals in my area. Surprisingly, I was able to schedule an interview with a health administrator, and formally assess the interview in this week's assessment. This was not one my typical informational interviews. Usually I discussed on current topics and public health scares. Instead, I was learning about a completely new field. I learned that health administration (at least in this interviewer’s case) is an analysis of the whole field and patient's needs. With this information, administration are able to shape the healthcare system and the available services to the public. This interview accessed more of the business and management side of public health. Which indeed was very interesting. However, at the end of the interview, managing a clinic seemed interesting, but I'm still fond of practicing medicine and having a direct relationship with the patient.
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This past week of ISM has been very exciting.
Before this week, I had an interview, but it was cancelled due to the unavailability of the medical professional. Despite her absence, I decided to call her back later next week to see if we can reschedule the interview. When I spoke to the receptionist, she gave me the personal phone number of the professional and she said that she would contact me regarding the interview. Later that day, I was contacted her; she told me that she had a family emergency and that she forgot to cancel the interview. We decided to reschedule interview for this week on October 19, 2017 at 12:30 pm. The interview went very well! I was able to gain a broader perspective on public health, and my interviewer/interviewee gave me information regarding deciding and funding my medical school. I appreciate all the help she gave me, and I hope that in the future I can ask her to be my mentor. Moreover, I have started to think about my original work. I am leading towards a research paper regarding the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the African continent. Hopefully, this somewhat correlates with my final project, but I am already thinking how I want my presentation board to be done and how and when to gather my research. This past week of ISM have gone through some obstacles in finding my mentor.
First, I acquired an interview at the Community Health Clinic in Mckinney. I drove to Community Health Clinic in hopes of a short, informational interview regarding public health and the possibility of a mentorship. However when I arrived, the clinic was closed this. I was shocked, because I verified the day before if my interviewer would be available, and the clinic staff was in high esteem that would be present . Since she was not available, I missed an opportunity at school find more interviews and also type in interview assessment. I was very disappointed that I did not get to be able to interview, but next class for ISM I will make sure to call again and try to reschedule for another interview with clinic. Moreover, I have had some difficulties in finding an interview with a medical professional in a community health center or free clinic for my field of study, public health. In this year of ISM, my goal is to find a medical professional- preferably a physician that works within or with a free clinics- but I have come to find that a lot of these clinic on managed under registered nurses (RN) or executive directors partnered with other organizations or hospitals. Therefore, it has been very difficult finding a mentor or interview that fits my needs. I think this week, I will have to find a way to change my approach of acquiring these interviews to secure a mentor for my final research projects in the winter showcase Despite my roadblock in success this past week, I have already decided what I’d like to be my final research project for this year. While, it is not completely set in stone, I hope to start my own nonprofit Organization dealing with the distribution of different materials in places that are underprivileged or in developing countries. While this may seem difficult, I do believe that I can achieve this goal by the end of the year. This past week of ISM has been very exciting.
On Wednesday October 5, we went to independence high school for the annual ISM business symposium. At first, I was extremely nervous. I was surrounded by student who were all focused and determined. I started to compare myself to these students, but when I started talking to them they were just like me: passionate individuals who are using ISM to help propel themselves into their futures. Every student, staff member, and volunteer I meet were kind and very informative. To my surprise, I found a public health administrator for Texas Health. She gave me whole layout of the education to career in public health. I also received feedback from other volunteers on my resume and interview, along with gaining some new information about personal branding, college, and professionalism. Overall I rate my experience a 10 out of 10. I gained new confidence and I am very excited to see how my ISM journey goes through the year. Moreover, on Wednesday October 11, I have my first informational interview over issues in the public health sector and for a possible mentorship. I currently preparing my interview questions and I have my suit ready to go. I am again nervous, but I will smile through the anxiety and hope to succeed. I hope to gain a lot of information over the information so I can incorporate into my topic proposal, and also have the opportunity to have a mentorship secured. Ultimately, I am content and appreciative of my current ISM journey, and I hope to continue to learn more In this past week of ISM, I have continued to grow my passion and practice professionalism.
One of the highlights of my week is cold calling. Last week, I discussed how in class we are beginning to start cold calling, therefore I need to practice in order to be prepared. I practiced cold calling with my computer mate: Abby Allison. She provided me with feedback and helped shape me for my cold call. When it was time to do my cold call, I was nervous and it was very apparent. However, I got my point across and secured my first interview. As a result, I won Mr. Spiece’s cold call challenge. Moreover, this week we also finalized our resumes. With my rough draft resume, I received feedback through a peer review activity. With their criticism, I was able to better construct my resume to reflect what was required along with my personality. Lastly, in my assessment this week, I wrote about the current rates of HIV globally and its prevention methods. The broadness of public health has allowed me access to topics that I could not discuss with infectious disease. I am able to talk about completely different topics that interest me, but I still able to tie them back together for the security of the public. As I continue my ISM, I am proud to say that I able to have access and the opportunity to mentor with someone affiliated with my passion. In this past week in ISM, I started to research my new topic, public health. One main reason that I wanted to switch my topic was to have a more broad topics (that I am interested in) available for me to formally research and assess. There was one obstacles along the way with researching. Mackin Via was down, but I still had access to credible information from government website and international health related organization. My major of topic in my essay this assessing the how an individual's lifestyle affects their health. The major outcome of having a poor diet and lack of exercise is acquiring a multitude of preventable, chronic diseases, such as diabetes and obesity.
Moreover, another exciting part of ISM this week was creating my resume and preparing for cold calling. Creating my resume was not as difficult as I thought it would be; once I had all the categories that were required, I just filled in the information needed. Cumulatively, it took me about an hour or so to do it. While creating my resume was simple and self explanatory, I believe that my biggest challenge next week will be cold calling. In the past week, Mr. Spiece presented us with an outline of what needs to be said and accomplished while a cold calling. While following the given outline was easy, I still need to somehow become comfortable enough to make it my own. However, this will only be accomplished with me conducting multiple cold calls. Hopefully, then i will be able to gain an interview and move forward in my ISM Despite completely changing my topic and my underlying anxiety towards cold calling, it has not shaken my passion of helping others in need and my interest in medicine. This week has been another exciting and challenging week of ISM.
My top accomplishment is time management. For the past few weeks I have struggled getting back into school and managing my time. Now I believe that I have gotten my time management down, as a result, I am using my time inside and outside of class more effectively. Moreover, this week I have had a shift in my interest, or more specifically a more broader focus. When entering the ISM program, I believe that I would not change my field of study, infectious disease. However, as I began researching infectious disease, I felt that in order to be successful and fully feed my passion in helping others, I need to find a way to incorporate all health, social, and political issues. With the help of my peers and research, I have decided to change my topic to public health. With public health I can practice medicine while also having a prominent position politics, along with being able to tackle different social issues globally. By studying public health I am not limiting my skills and passions to one subject, instead I am allowing for an infinite amount of opportunities to come my way. Therefore, this week in my assessment I will research recent discussions regarding nation and/or international public health. In this week of ISM, a big discussion topic in our class was research. For example, assessment two was a career outlook research paper over our desired topic of study. In my career assessment I collected information regarding the education, job outlook, and salary of an infectious disease specialist. While it was difficult finding information specifically for an ID specialist, I was able to find information in its main branch, internal medicine. After researching, I was able to answer any question is had regarding on education, and also derive both job and financial security in my future field of study. While the research was heavy, I enjoyed learning new points about infectious disease. Similarly, as a class we were to find about 20 contacts and create 15 original interview questions. We were forced to find alternative ways to find contacts, but still struggled finding correct or useable information. I primarily focused my questions towards infectious disease specialist, but broaden my search of mentors with infectious disease and internal medicine clinics in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.
All in all, being able to research my career path has not shaken me from my intent of being an infectious disease specialist. Finding contacts may have been difficult, but i do not believe that inflicted a barrier in my progress. Therefore, as my ISM journey continues, I too continue to grow. As I have now completed my second week of ISM, the assignments are already showing how this course will be implemented into my future.
Moreover, in this week of ISM, we have been assigned our first assessment. This assessment is regarding our topics and learning about future careers. As I dive in deeper into research about my topic, Infectious Disease, the schooling and time to become a physician is extremely drawn-out. However, when reading articles about why medical student decided to become a doctor, my passion to help others is unmoved by the amount of effort needed to achieve my goals. I believe that there will be more to learned as I continue my research over my future career choice. Similarly, I have truly felt the independent factor of ISM. When entering ISM, I felt confident that I was prepared for the amount of work provided by being in the course. But again, this being my second week of ISM, my anxiety heightens. I am not worried much about the amount of work, but how I manage my time. My previous conception of ISM, was similar to AP Seminar; I thought even though it was “independent”, there was still some guidance from the teacher in almost every step of the way. I was wrong. ISM has now forced me to seriously use my time wisely in class, instead of having unnecessary conversations with my peers. As new deadlines start appearing this week, I will have to find new ways to manage my time efficiently. Lastly, on an unrelated matter, I have created an introductory speech regarding why I am in ISM and a little bit about me. While, I have not presented this speech, I found this assignment an appropriate way to reaffirm my reasoning in applying to ISM and further express my passion. In this week of ISM, I have notice a particular trend on the concept of passion in our work.
As a class we had the opportunity to have a guest speaker, Julie Martin Leslie, speak on passion. As a past mentor of Mr. Spiece, she possessed great wisdom about ISM and its students work. While I was not able to stay throughout the whole presentation, I was able to grasp her message of passion and hardwork. Last year, Mrs. Martin faced major obstacles with losing her job to help her husband with pancreatic cancer. When her husband began to recover, she still felt that her journey as a mentor was incomplete. She decided to become a consultant in aiding other, especially students, in finding and guiding their passions. As an ISM student, this spoke to me on a relatively deep level. Her presentation on how she loved to help others with their passion along with her bubbly personality, inspired me to seriously set goals in my future in ISM and beyond. I am now even more certain that I want to become a Infectious disease specialist and help others beyond my US borders. I believe the skills needed in the “real world” that ISM will teach would further grow my passions and push me harder to reach my goals. Coupled with the reassurance in my passion and future, I was able to create an introductory presentation this week in ISM. This presentation will allow me to showcase my personality to my classmates, along with my future goals and aspirations in this course and beyond. Also, I wrote my mission statement and picked out my quote. My quote is “We know what we are, but know not what we may be”, by William Shakespeare. This quote to me symbolizes the endless possibilities and uncertainties of my futures. With these constant new obstacles and ideas, it forces me to learn how to control them and use them to my advantage. Moreover, my mission statement and my quote go hand in hand. I decided to write that “my mission is to use my different talents and interests to help others in need, while being able to continuously challenge myself and grow as an individual”. With using my talents and interest in medicine and social justice, these qualities will allow me as an individual to help others and guide my future as a physician. As of now, I have not encountered any problems, and hopefully this trend continues throughout my academic year. |