by Surya (Sonny) Ravinder
Introduction into My Summer
This summer I was involved in multiple volunteering opportunities. One of the activities that I was involved in was Hopkins Community Connections which is a program for undergraduates to volunteer and interact with patients to help them address their social needs which are directly correlated to their health and well being. I had two patient lists that I followed up with weekly and I screened them for social determinants of health, set goals for them, and helped them meet those goals to better address their needs. The other volunteering position I worked in over the summer was for Child Life which is an opportunity in which students work in the children’s hospital and provide care for pediatric patients. Specifically, I worked in the Pre-op unit, so I volunteered with pediatric patients who were getting prepped for various surgeries and procedures.
Highlights of My Experiences
Some key experiences for me in HCC were interacting with my patients as I would have to call them each week to follow up with them. In these conversations I would learn a lot about my patients as they had to share personal details so that I could best assist them. Some more key experiences from HCC were when I was actually able to help my patients successfully get help from the resources or programs I referred to them too. Additionally, as part of HCC over the summer, we each had our own summer projects that we worked in small groups on. My project was called PPMCO which tackled how hospital systems are switching from fee for service based care to value based care in which the care provided by hospital systems is incentivized based on the quality of care and not the fact that patients just receive care. Some challenges I faced in HCC however were getting a better understanding of all the resources that we provide or are able to help patients with as the list is so big and there is so much depth to just how you can utilize resources to help patients. Additionally, it was initially a challenge figuring out how to communicate effectively with patients in making sure that I was able to get my thoughts across to them in a clear and organized way. For Child Life, some challenges I faced was initially interacting with children as it is a lot more different than interacting with adults as I was used to doing in HCC. So changing and adapting how I communicated was also a hurdle I had toovercome in Child Life, but some highlights were when I made that breakthrough and was able to actually communicate with the kids and entertain them.
Some Takeaways
In terms of technical skills, the biggest thing was that I learned how to use EPIC systems and navigate to electronic medical records and use EPIC to check patients charts, and make referrals and send messages to other providers. This is definitely a handy skill to have as it is something I will have to do when I am a doctor anyways. But some of the soft skills I learned were being more effective at communicating. Interacting with both adults and children in different environments allowed me to develop my communication skills so now I feel more comfortable talking to strangers and really just communicating to anyone in general. I also was able to develop my time management skills as working in both positions required that I be effective in managing my time or else I would be able to see or help all of my patients and it would’ve hindered my effectiveness as an advocate.
The Importance of My OKRs
I think setting OKRs helped me narrow down the specific goals I wanted to work on and really focus on them instead of just having a bunch of broad goals and not really being able to work on them as effectively. It really helped me focus my efforts in my internship experience and develop the skills I identified more fully. I think one key result that was huge for me was being able to refer resources in HCC without using any guides. I really focused on improving my knowledge on different resources, and towards the end of experience I found myself being able to immediately identify what resources clients would need and being able to creatively use different resources to meet my patients needs. Working on this definitely helped me become more knowledgeable as an advocate.
What I’ve Learned
One big lesson I learned is that there is always something more to learn. When I got deeper into my experiences I thought that I was pretty capable with what I knew, but then I kept on learning things and found out things that I just had never heard of before despite having spent so much time in my experiences already. I also realized that relying on your colleagues is something that you will need to be comfortable doing as it is something you might have to do a decent amount. Sometimes it’s just too overwhelming to tackle everything yourself which is why you have other people around you who are just as capable and who you can rely on. Another thing that Ilearned is that you must constantly be working to develop your skills daily even if just a little bit. I took a week break over the summer as my week off for HCC, and when I came back I found that I was a little rusty in communicating or talking with my patients, so constantly developing your skills allows you to maintain and grow those skills in the future, and it can be anywhere not just at work.
Looking Ahead
What I have learned over this summer, including based on just my experiences, have solidified my decision to pursue a career in medicine, as I am convinced that it is exactly what I want to do. All the skills that I have gathered from my time at HCC and Child Life have helped me grow and develop not only as a student but as a person as well, and they are definitely skills that I will be making use of in the future and later on in my career as a medical professional as well. And I am thankful that I had the opportunity this summer to participate in the experiences that I did.
