Here are some of my goals from this past summer and elaborations on the challenges and successes related to accomplishing those goals.
Publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal.
This was probably the most cliché goal that a first year medical student could have, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that was the most important objective for my summer. I started off working on two separate projects this summer in order to hedge my bets and follow through with whichever paper had the best chance of getting published. This did not last very long. One mentor that I was working with (still working with?) has lofty goals of implementing a Zagat-style scoring for surgeons across all sub-specialties. I was impressed with the novelty of the idea and the proprietary interests that my mentor has, but we lost touch over the summer after he failed to follow up with my communications. I am still very interested in this project and continuing work on the literature review, but this project is tabled for the time being.
My current work-in-progress is an 8,000 word literature review on assessments of male infertility in epidemiological research. This was the project that I was working on at NICHD. I am working with a third year Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI) fellow at NIH, an epidemiologist and the director of our branch to get this paper published. I do most of the work, with researching, writing and presenting. My clinical fellow provides me with feedback on a regular basis on how to edit and move forward. The epidemiologist and director check in with me at major milestones in my research process and give me valuable guidance with big-picture stuff. This research is very interesting to me. I have learned a lot about the field of infertility treatment, an area of medicine that I am particularly interested in. A major direct success of my research project was discussing a poster that summarized my findings to my department in a brief presentation and presenting my poster at the NIH summer student poster day- an event that a few of my other medical school colleagues in my class participated in.
Gain clinical exposure in Reproductive Endocrinology.
I had the chance to shadow reproductive endocrinologists on two occasions at the Clinical Center at NIH, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was challenged by the clinical fellows with topics in female reproductive physiology and had the chance to observe clinical consults. I also attended various clinical seminars at NIH on topics such as PCOS, premature menopause and other REI subjects. Earlier in the summer, I observed egg retrievals and other laboratory procedures at an In-Vitro Fertilization clinic in Puerto Rico.
Attend various seminars and journal clubs.
As part of my summer student experience in the Division of Intramural Population Health research, I participated in a summer student course, which was taught by the post-doctoral research fellows. Topics ranged from biostatistics, epidemiological research methods and how to publish a paper. I also participated in a weekly journal club, and gave a presentation on an ethical research dilemma involving varying oxygen levels in a study design involving newborn infants. This was a particularly rewarding experience, because I had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion among a particularly diverse group of pre-doctoral and post-doctoral experts from various backgrounds. I was occasionally the person to give clinical insight into research discussions during seminars and journal clubs as I was frequently the only person in the room who had any sort of clinical experience.
The seminars at NIH were simply incredible. Having the opportunity to listen to the most current research from the experts in their respective fields was awesome. I attended a presentation given by someone at the Office of Scientific Research at the White House who was pitching potential ideas for collaboration between NICHD and the White House and discussed initiatives for incorporating big data into research. I listened to a basic science researcher discuss his research on ovarian cancer in Drosophila flies. I also heard about research on maternal health in Argentina, which was an impressive presentation given by an international collaborative research team. Learning by osmosis was huge for me this summer, but I took the opportunity to challenge myself with understanding as much material as I could and ask questions whenever it was appropriate.
Establish professional relationships with co-interns and employees.
Networking at NIH was important to me, and it is something that I’ve taken seriously since I listened to a seminar given by Keith Ferrazzi, the author of Never Eat Alone. Over the course of the summer, I ate lunch, drank responsibly at happy hours and displayed masterful culinary skills at potluck events with my co-interns. And nearly every day, I worked out in a local park for a half-hour with my boss and other staff employees. These informal interactions with my co-workers were integral components of making my work experience enjoyable. They also solidified my relationships with these people for maintaining professional relationships in the future.
I also formally networked and established contact with some important administrators at NICHD. I had lunch with the deputy director of extramural research, Dr. Caroline Signore, who is also a GWU graduate student alum. I got to hear about her career in OB/GYN and NICHD. I bounced ideas off of Dr. Stuart Moss, the director of intramural research in male infertility at NICHD and learned about current research in male infertility and shared with him my results from my research project.
Stay intellectually stimulated.
I wanted to work out my brain this summer in a different way than med school keeps my brain fit. Combing through Pubmed on a daily basis and learning about epidemiology research and biostatistics expanded my framework for thinking about medicine. I appreciate the different bits of knowledge I picked up on those domains this summer. I also began writing a blog this summer to start to formalize my thoughts on healthcare and share them with my friends and family. I also designed this blog to develop my brand as a future physician, something I consider to be important to me. You can read my blog at neildubey.weebly.com
Understand how a large research institution functions.
This was a very interesting aspect of my internship experience. As a summer student, I got the inside perspective into how people from various expertise can work together to conduct research. A unique way I learned about this was sitting in on weekly conference calls for a clinical trial that my department was conducting in Minnesota and Utah. Learning about the logistics of collecting data and managing thousands of patients was slightly overwhelming, yet very interesting. Observing how my department director troubleshooted, managed a team and delegated tasks was an important lesson in management skills and something I paid attention to in our department meetings.
General Reflections
I could not have imagined a better summer experience in terms of my respective goals for the summer. I learned so much at NIH, and my interest in infertility treatment has blossomed. My experience with health policy related to this field was entirely dependent upon my own initiative. I gained insight into how federal research institutions function, potential areas for growth are in healthcare research (i.e. Big Data), proper leadership skills and how to talk to experts who don’t have MD after their name.
I have also decided that a primary research career is not something I want to pursue in my future. Despite the vast amount of information I learned from behind a computer and sitting at conference tables, my true passion for medicine is to be in the clinical setting, working with patients. My glimpse into the REI clinic confirmed my desire to someday be someone’s doctor. This internship experience is invaluable for learning more about research methods to inform my clinical practice, which is probably more important than getting a paper published.
Publish a paper in a peer-reviewed journal.
This was probably the most cliché goal that a first year medical student could have, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that was the most important objective for my summer. I started off working on two separate projects this summer in order to hedge my bets and follow through with whichever paper had the best chance of getting published. This did not last very long. One mentor that I was working with (still working with?) has lofty goals of implementing a Zagat-style scoring for surgeons across all sub-specialties. I was impressed with the novelty of the idea and the proprietary interests that my mentor has, but we lost touch over the summer after he failed to follow up with my communications. I am still very interested in this project and continuing work on the literature review, but this project is tabled for the time being.
My current work-in-progress is an 8,000 word literature review on assessments of male infertility in epidemiological research. This was the project that I was working on at NICHD. I am working with a third year Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility (REI) fellow at NIH, an epidemiologist and the director of our branch to get this paper published. I do most of the work, with researching, writing and presenting. My clinical fellow provides me with feedback on a regular basis on how to edit and move forward. The epidemiologist and director check in with me at major milestones in my research process and give me valuable guidance with big-picture stuff. This research is very interesting to me. I have learned a lot about the field of infertility treatment, an area of medicine that I am particularly interested in. A major direct success of my research project was discussing a poster that summarized my findings to my department in a brief presentation and presenting my poster at the NIH summer student poster day- an event that a few of my other medical school colleagues in my class participated in.
Gain clinical exposure in Reproductive Endocrinology.
I had the chance to shadow reproductive endocrinologists on two occasions at the Clinical Center at NIH, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was challenged by the clinical fellows with topics in female reproductive physiology and had the chance to observe clinical consults. I also attended various clinical seminars at NIH on topics such as PCOS, premature menopause and other REI subjects. Earlier in the summer, I observed egg retrievals and other laboratory procedures at an In-Vitro Fertilization clinic in Puerto Rico.
Attend various seminars and journal clubs.
As part of my summer student experience in the Division of Intramural Population Health research, I participated in a summer student course, which was taught by the post-doctoral research fellows. Topics ranged from biostatistics, epidemiological research methods and how to publish a paper. I also participated in a weekly journal club, and gave a presentation on an ethical research dilemma involving varying oxygen levels in a study design involving newborn infants. This was a particularly rewarding experience, because I had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion among a particularly diverse group of pre-doctoral and post-doctoral experts from various backgrounds. I was occasionally the person to give clinical insight into research discussions during seminars and journal clubs as I was frequently the only person in the room who had any sort of clinical experience.
The seminars at NIH were simply incredible. Having the opportunity to listen to the most current research from the experts in their respective fields was awesome. I attended a presentation given by someone at the Office of Scientific Research at the White House who was pitching potential ideas for collaboration between NICHD and the White House and discussed initiatives for incorporating big data into research. I listened to a basic science researcher discuss his research on ovarian cancer in Drosophila flies. I also heard about research on maternal health in Argentina, which was an impressive presentation given by an international collaborative research team. Learning by osmosis was huge for me this summer, but I took the opportunity to challenge myself with understanding as much material as I could and ask questions whenever it was appropriate.
Establish professional relationships with co-interns and employees.
Networking at NIH was important to me, and it is something that I’ve taken seriously since I listened to a seminar given by Keith Ferrazzi, the author of Never Eat Alone. Over the course of the summer, I ate lunch, drank responsibly at happy hours and displayed masterful culinary skills at potluck events with my co-interns. And nearly every day, I worked out in a local park for a half-hour with my boss and other staff employees. These informal interactions with my co-workers were integral components of making my work experience enjoyable. They also solidified my relationships with these people for maintaining professional relationships in the future.
I also formally networked and established contact with some important administrators at NICHD. I had lunch with the deputy director of extramural research, Dr. Caroline Signore, who is also a GWU graduate student alum. I got to hear about her career in OB/GYN and NICHD. I bounced ideas off of Dr. Stuart Moss, the director of intramural research in male infertility at NICHD and learned about current research in male infertility and shared with him my results from my research project.
Stay intellectually stimulated.
I wanted to work out my brain this summer in a different way than med school keeps my brain fit. Combing through Pubmed on a daily basis and learning about epidemiology research and biostatistics expanded my framework for thinking about medicine. I appreciate the different bits of knowledge I picked up on those domains this summer. I also began writing a blog this summer to start to formalize my thoughts on healthcare and share them with my friends and family. I also designed this blog to develop my brand as a future physician, something I consider to be important to me. You can read my blog at neildubey.weebly.com
Understand how a large research institution functions.
This was a very interesting aspect of my internship experience. As a summer student, I got the inside perspective into how people from various expertise can work together to conduct research. A unique way I learned about this was sitting in on weekly conference calls for a clinical trial that my department was conducting in Minnesota and Utah. Learning about the logistics of collecting data and managing thousands of patients was slightly overwhelming, yet very interesting. Observing how my department director troubleshooted, managed a team and delegated tasks was an important lesson in management skills and something I paid attention to in our department meetings.
General Reflections
I could not have imagined a better summer experience in terms of my respective goals for the summer. I learned so much at NIH, and my interest in infertility treatment has blossomed. My experience with health policy related to this field was entirely dependent upon my own initiative. I gained insight into how federal research institutions function, potential areas for growth are in healthcare research (i.e. Big Data), proper leadership skills and how to talk to experts who don’t have MD after their name.
I have also decided that a primary research career is not something I want to pursue in my future. Despite the vast amount of information I learned from behind a computer and sitting at conference tables, my true passion for medicine is to be in the clinical setting, working with patients. My glimpse into the REI clinic confirmed my desire to someday be someone’s doctor. This internship experience is invaluable for learning more about research methods to inform my clinical practice, which is probably more important than getting a paper published.