If You Don’t Like the Road You’re Walking, Start Paving Another One

This past week in ISM, I had my first mentor visit which led me to writing my first mentor visit assessment of the year. I was extremely excited to begin brainstorming ideas for original work and to experience new and contrasting events in the clinic (things that may not follow the regular operational pattern). Additionally, I began preparing for my research presentation.

Something that is essential to my success in this class is keeping up with the more minute items alongside the major items. Updating my paper and website portfolio, revising my contact log, making sure I send thank-you notes to all of my interviewees, these are all extremely crucial things that are just as important as assessments and speech presentations.

Moving onto my first mentor visit of the year, I was able to observe a mixture of clinical activities as well as more exposure to what goes on in the nursery. Dr. Dickschat, my mentor, explained the procedures she takes in order to make sure that newborns are healthy and there are no major concerns present. Additionally, this can be a somewhat spontaneous occurrence. Meaning, Dr. Dickschat can be called in whenever necessary to check up on the younger patients.

Furthermore, Mr. Speice stated that we should build this class around our needs and take advantage of the opportunities presented. Thus, something different I tried was to sort of combine my mentor visit assessment with some outside research and then also provide a more in-depth analysis of the information I observed to gain a better insight of pediatrics.

In conclusion, I hope to continue utilizing mentor visits in order to further my acquisition of information within the pediatric field.