Interview Preparation

Week 1 9/21-9/25

This week I successfully completed my topic proposal which consisted of how I became interested in the field of pediatrics and why my personality and aptitude suit my career of choice. The main focus of this week and last couple weeks has been preparing for interviews.  During class, we have learned and practiced strategies on how to keep our interviews professional as well as conversational. Additionally, I went and revised my list of interview questions. I placed my questions in an order which will allow me to keep my interviews flow in a casual manner as well as help me in getting the most information from the professional I will be interviewing. Completing this has created me a solid foundation for when I will be attending interviews in the next couple weeks, but I will need to continue practicing these questions in the meantime so that I can attend my interviews without feeling unprepared or too nervous. My goals for the next coming weeks are to prepare myself for the Business Symposium by practicing how to answer common questions as well as prepare insightful questions I can ask the various professionals I will be talking to. Overall, I have been satisfied with my productivity this week, and that I have made considerable gains in my knowledge of interviewing.

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Interview Practice

Week 2 9/28-10/2

    During this week I continued my preparation for interviewing and practiced several times in class to be ready for the Business Symposium next week. I worked on creating answers to common questions which I may face in an interview at the Business Symposium. For example, I learned that questions such as “What are your strengths” or “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” are very likely to be asked during the interview. I found myself rather nervous the first couple times I ran through the interview with one of my peers, but I came to the realization that as I did the interview more times, I got a better understanding of how to keep the interview more conversational and less scripted. Compared to last week, I think I have gotten better at learning how to create fluidity in the interview as well as how to imbed questions so that the conversation doesn’t feel one-sided. A good idea I got during class from a fellow peer was sharing my resume with the professional I am interviewing so that I can ask them for feedback regarding it towards the end of the interview. All in all, I think that I’ve made significant progress in my confidence level and preparation for the Business Symposium.

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Business Symposium

Week 3 10/5-10/9

    The main event for this week was the business symposium which I had prepared for the prior week in class and on my own as well. Throughout the process, I learned proper interview etiquette and how exactly to present myself on zoom interviews. Due to the current circumstances with Covid-19, my future interviews will most likely be through zoom so I think that this experience gave me a very good idea of what to expect moving forward and how to prepare as well. I found that preparing the week before helped me during the majority of the interview, however I found something that I didn’t expect. During the interview, I did my best effort to make sure that the interview flowed smoothly and felt conversational but throughout the interview I felt that I had not done that as well as I had wanted to. However, the professional I had interviewed told me that everything actually did in fact flow very well. Moving forward, I believe that I will need to continue to evaluate myself based solely on the response of the person I’m interviewing. Overall, I think that it was a very productive week and I feel myself getting much more confident in interviewing and I’m slowly starting to develop a pattern in my interviewing which I feel I can apply to a variety of situations.

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The Real Beginning

Week 4 10/12-10/16

   I started this week by learning the basic formats for voicemails, emails and initial phone calls I will be sending to professionals. Additionally, I also set up a professional voicemail on my phone based on the outline given to me in class. Outside of class I worked on rehearsing my initial phone call with professionals so that I will sound more prepared and less scripted during the calls. To do this I took the basic outline given to us and made some alterations so that it fit my speaking style. I think that was very crucial because before doing that, I found myself struggling to get through a practice phone call without making mistakes. Tailoring it to match how I would use it in a actual conversation will definitely help in the coming future. Lastly, I worked on filling out my contact list with pediatricians in the Dallas/Fort-Worth area and ended up with about 30 professionals. I found that it was very hard to find direct contacts for the pediatricians so I will be actually contacting them through their receptionist. This week was the first time so far that I have been tasked with trying to speak with professionals in my field, so I think it will be a challenge at first. However, I am positive that this experience will only set me up for future success.

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Initial Contacts

Week 5 10/19-10/23

    Throughout this week I went through my contact list and made phone calls as well as sent out emails. I made contact with about 20 professionals however, I didn’t find much success. Most of the offices either didn’t pick up or told me that the doctors are way too busy because of the situation going on with the pandemic. This is one of the first struggles I have come across so far this year but I have a couple of solutions to fix it in the coming week. First way is by contacting the doctors I go to. I think that I will have a higher chance of getting a phone or zoom call with them because I have previously spoken with them and they may remember me. Second option is if I run out of contacts on my list, I will contact professionals farther outside the DFW metroplex. Since this year is all virtual I think I may be able to use that to my advantage as I could get phone calls or zoom calls with professionals even if they are not in drivable distance. The priority for next week will be to implement these 2 possible solutions if I am still not able to get an interview.

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First Official interview

Week 6 10/26-10/30

 

    This week I kept working on getting phone calls with professionals and this time I finally got one. I decided to contact people outside of DFW and got a call with a family friend in New Mexico. This professional does not directly work in Pediatrics but their field of Internal Medicine was very close to the career I’m studying. I had the interview on Sunday and I would say it went much smoother than I had expected. I got a lot of good information on what to expect during med school as well as my undergraduate years when I will be taking rigorous pre-med courses. I’d say most of the information I got about my education were things I had already learned during research, however I did gain some really good information on how residency works and how it differs from medical school. I think that I will be continuing to contact professionals outside of DFW and maybe even outside of Texas, so that I can maximize the amount of interviews I can get. All in all, after a rough couple of weeks I have gained more confidence in myself after finally getting an interview and I hope I continue to make consistent progress.

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QuickTrip

Week 7

11/2- 11/6

    This week my classmates and I presented our presentations about our “QuickTrips”. I was blown away by the creativity that everyone used in making their presentations and how almost everyone thought outside of the box for their presentations. After each presentation, we were provided feedback by our classmates and I think that allowed everyone to see what they need to improve on for the future. For me, I think my classmates felt the same thing I did while presenting and that is flow. I felt that I got my content to the audience pretty well, but my presentation was rather choppy at times. Still, I think it was a great experience being able to do a presentation that was much different than what I have done before and that for my future presentations I will definitely be able to do them with more confidence because of the constructive feedback I was able to get. Something that I think I did rather well in my presentation was being able to give off more confidence and inflection in my voice, which is something I lacked during the first speech we gave during the first couple weeks of class. I believe that so far I am continuing to make slow but steady progress in my speaking abilities.

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Speedbumps

Week 8

11/9-11/13

    This week was rather slow in terms of getting interviews and phone calls with professionals. As a result, I sat down with Mr.Pirtle in order to make a plan to pick up the pace for the coming week. The plan we made consisted of reaching out to 10-15 more professionals but in other medical professions as well and not just focused in on pediatrics. We found that other students who have chosen pediatrics as their topic also had some of the same issues I had encountered because of how busy pediatricians were with COVID-19. He also recommended that I continued to reach outside of the local Dallas area which I had began doing a couple weeks back as I realized that other students were already calling most of the same professionals as me. On Monday morning, I reached out to Dr. Murali from a couple weeks back and tried to see if she could refer me to anyone she knew and fortunately I was able to get in contact with one of her relatives, Dr. Srirangam Muralidhasan. We planned on talking Wednesday this week in order to schedule a brief call this weekend. I’m very excited for this upcoming interview, because this doctor works in family medicine, a field very closely related to pediatrics. Additionally, I found out that he has had more than 30 years of experience in the field of medicine which I believe will allow me to gain very insightful information about careers in the medical field. Although the week started off bumpy, I’d say it ended in a very smooth way.

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Weeks 9&10

11/16-11/27

   The week before Thanksgiving break was much more laid-back than usual and we did some interesting turkey-themed brain games in class. As the break started, I had my second interview on that Saturday with Dr. Srirangam Muralidhasan, a doctor in family medicine. I found that his 25 plus years of experience in the field gave me a lot of valuable knowledge on what to expect in my later years if I ultimately go down them medical path. Something he said which really stuck with me is about how proud he is of himself at the end of his workdays and gets the feeling of satisfaction that he made a positive impact on the world. He told me that even after being in the field for so long, he never seems to get bored of it or feel as if he had made the wrong career choice. Additionally, something I found to be rather cool was that, he said that as the years went by and he gained more and more knowledge on various illnesses, diseases, etc. it became like almost second nature to offer a certain treatment to a patient.

    During Monday and Tuesday of my break, I found myself with a lot of time to spare and so I talked to my parents about possible connections with doctors they have in India and I have now got myself 2 interviews for over Christmas break. One of these doctors in particular, will be very interesting to talk to because she was the one who helped deliver me 17 years back! I am looking forward to speaking with her after  the next few weeks and get to see how her journey was as a medical professional in a very under-developed area.

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Week 11

12/7-12/11

    The biggest thing that happened this week was that we were introduced to our Original work projects and how the timeline for that will work. To be honest, this was one of the coolest parts of ISM I was looking forward to when I applied for the program because it sounded like something that allowed me to create something that can potentially be very useful or impactful. I plan on spending the weekend in brainstorming some initial ideas on what I could do for my Original project and see where to go from there.

    In terms of finding a mentor, I have narrowed it down to asking Dr.Muralidhasan and I feel very confident that it will go smoothly. I have arranged a second call with him for next Saturday 12/12 and I’m looking forward to it as it will help me accomplish a major milestone for my ISM journey. 

    This week was mainly just introductions on what we will be covering in the next couple weeks before Winter break and so I used the extra time to prepare for the reflections presentation I will be giving next Wednesday. This is the first speech this year that is longer than what I’ve typically done in the past and so I will have to do some more preparation than usual in order to give a smooth and engaging presentation for my peers. 

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Week 12

12/14-12/18

Milestone

    After weeks and weeks of contacting professionals and trying to get a mentor... I finally got one! On Saturday, Dr. Muralidhasan agreed to be my mentor during our second meeting and I am excited for what is to come. I filled out my mentor forms and sent him the welcome email for ISM as well. Completing a major milestone felt really good especially after putting in a lot of effort into it. Aside from this, in class we completed our research reflection presentations which I found to be very interesting to watch everyone show what they have learned throughout the year. I was honestly surprised to see how much everyone has grown since the beginning of the year and presented with much more confidence. Looking back and comparing my most recent speech to the beginning of the year when I could barely deliver a one minute presentation about myself without shaking and sweating makes them seem like almost two different people delivered them. After completing an 8 minute presentation with a very minimal script, my confidence has greatly improved especially after receiving positive feedback from my peers who also acknowledged my improvement since the beginning of the year. All in all, I would say that this has been the most productive and satisfying week I’ve had so far in ISM.

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Week 13

1/4/21-1/8/21

 

Winter break went by in a blink of an eye and it was time to get back into the groove of things and begin churning away at my original work. I decided that I would make use of the Evidence of Learning assignment to start my research into my project and so I started off with the basics. My original work is to create a proposal to create an outline for a plan to increase the accessibility to quality healthcare for the villages and rural areas in the state of Tamil Nadu in India and so I started off by doing research on what the major issues are and the reasons behind them as well. I found an article which summarized the issues into what it called, “The Five A’s”. Which are: accessibility, affordability, absence of human power, accountability or lack of it, and awareness. I went into these things more into detail in the evidence of learning, so best not to repeat what I said, but what I got from this was a good basis on where to direct my upcoming research for next week towards. Overall, it was a productive week and I hope to carry the same momentum on to next week as well.

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Week 14

1/11-1/15

    After finding out some basic ideas to go off of last week,  I was able to start this week off by first looking into the affordability aspect of the issues and did deeper research into it as I only had the basics of the topic from last week. As I dug through some databases I found this 60 page report which looked like it was tailored exactly towards my project and so I began reading through it and so far have got about a quarter way through analyzing it and I’m thinking I will be done with it by the end of next week. The main generalization I have made so far from reading it is that, it has provided me information regarding which specific reforms need to be implemented in regards to policy, institution and government. However, in my proposal I am thinking about not going to in depth about the government aspect since it doesn’t really fall much under my area of study this year. Still, I found a couple reform topics/ideas which caught my attention :budget allocations, entitlement benefits and supervision upgrades. So these ideas are not exactly what I’m going to directly be adding to my own proposal but will be some parts of a new original idea I will create. 

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Week 15

1/18-1/22

    So this week was quite similar to last week as I continued my research and finished reading through the report. A few main concepts I got from this were that:Many parts of rural India are experiencing an epidemiological transition and this is reflected in a growing burden of non-communicable diseases,  the proportion of household income spent on healthcare in Tamil Nadu is considerably lower than the other states, and that it is also important to reduce the administrative burden and unnecessary paper work for the medical staff (mainly doctors and ANMs) at all levels of the HFs so as to improve the general working of the hospital facilities. On a more eventful note, I had my first official mentor meeting with Dr.Muralidhasan and I got a chance to go over, more in depth of all the mentor responsibilities and what we will both be doing in conjunction for the next couple months. Additionally, we created a schedule for meeting twice a month on the weekends. By our next meeting, I have discussed with my mentor that I will be providing him with a revised original work proposal along with a summary of what I have researched so far as well.

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Week 16

1/25-1/29

    Research, research and research. That has basically been the word used to describe the past few weeks and this week was also no different. This week, in order to prepare myself to actually start writing the proposal I thought it would be a good idea to first understand some basics behind public health and some of the fundamental concepts that I have to understand before proceeding. To get a better grasp on some of these ideas, I completed another research assessment on a report called, “Fundamentals of Public Health”. I got a lot of valuable information out of this such as getting good guideline on some of the most essential concepts of public health. A few of the ones that I thought would pertain most to the Indian healthcare system were: “Informing, educating, and empowering people about health issues, Mobilizing community partnerships to identify and solve health problems, developing policies and plans that support individual and community health efforts.” In terms of my mentorship, I have sent my mentor an email with my original work proposal and will be discussing it with him in our coming meeting on Feb 6th. Although my most recently updated proposal had very minor changes that I made on my own, I am thinking that my mentor will be offering a lot more critiques than what I have implemented so far.

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Week 17

2/1-2/5

    This week I switched things up  from doing just research on articles and decided to complete this evidence of learning on a Ted Talk I found called, “What Makes us Sick? Look Upstream” I chose this article based on my research last week and wanted a bit more insight on why and how preventative care is important. This Ted Talk is made by Rishi Manchanda, a doctor in South Central Los Angeles and the important information that I got out of it was about this upstream approach plan which has so far one of the most efficient ideas I have researched so far in terms of my original work and I think will be a must in implementing in my proposal. This upstream approach is basically any health intervention that stems from the idea of one simple question: “What would need to be done so that this problem does not occur ever again?” By including a plan that can connect people to resources outside just clinical services will be a great addition to my proposal. Additionally this Saturday, I had another mentor meeting and discussed what some possible edits and what to focus on for my research on my Original work.

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Week 18

2/8-2/12

 

    Apart from the ongoing work on my original work, this week the main focus was on giving presentations. However, this week we were allowed to present on any topic of our choice. Originally, I was going to go up an talk about  something bland like climate change or some type of social movement or something else along those lines, but I decided to change it up at the last minute to something kind of random but I found interesting. I talked about table tennis or ping pong as some call it. I discussed some basic facts and history of the game and then talked about the fast paced style of the game in how losing a point or scoring a point is in a way really forgotten in a split second showed me that that the opposite of winning isn’t losing it’s really just failing to see the bigger picture. Overall, I found the presentation this week to be a good change from all the other things going on in ISM and enjoyed listening to my peers deliver their amazing presentations as well.Seeing how far everyone has come has really been eye opening and I hope that as a group we all continue to progress effectively in our presentation skills.

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Weeks 19-24

2/22-3/29

     During this month long period, I have hit a couple of milestones in regards to my original work. So to begin my proposal I thought that having a good abstract before the proposal itself would be very beneficial. I decided that some things that would be good to include in the abstract are facts that display the situation of healthcare in rural Tamil Nadu. So, I spent this time researching some interesting and attention-grabbing facts that would help my abstract not only be interesting but also smoothly bridge it on to my proposal.I have completed my research and finished the first portion of my work- the abstract.In  the abstract portion of my proposal I discussed the current healthcare situation in Tamil Nadu and some details I have from my personal experience with healthcare in India, I also discussed the economic situation in terms of the healthcare system. Lastly,  I organized my research into categories. These categories include “Issues”, “Possible Solutions”, “Regulations” and “Guidelines to format and write”. These categories will be implemented in the proposal itself as a way to organize it.

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