New Self

I was a little apprehensive about going into this week because I had my business symposium. On top of that I was still at zero interview at the beginning of this week and I knew that time was getting critical. However as the week progresses I was able to schedule three interviews and I made it through my business symposium with overall good reactions from each of my interviewers. Both my interview and business Symposium help shape me end strengthened it myself as both a student and the medical professional.

On Wednesday, I attended my first business symposium. This was incredibly helpful because despite not being able to talk to someone in the medical profession, I learned how to assert myself in a professional environment. During the first part of this event I focused on networking and just making interactions with other ISM students and mentors that could possibly lead me to more interviews. This helped me see how important was to stand out. Nearly every student I talked to was in the medical field. With that many people I knew that in order to ensure that I get the mentor of my choice I have to stand out in a way that was not just academic but personally make an impact. Yet being interviewed definitely had the greatest impact on me. It was definitely difficult tell a stranger all about yourself and your passion in less than 15 minutes. However I learned how to give my “ten second resume” which definitely impressed by the second and third interview. The interviews also made me more self-aware because I was able to understand where my strengths were, such as being honest and confident, and where my weaknesses were, such as speaking louder. I hope to build on this weaknesses so that by the time I go to my next interview I can come up a stronger and more suitable for the job.

Still my biggest accomplishment this week was getting to interview my first surgeon, Dr. London. Despite him being a general surgeon I still learned a lot of information about the health care practice as well as surgeons protocol in general. One of the most profound things I learned was that the biggest issue for most doctors was not the treatment of patients, but the changes in the government policies.This was news for me because while I knew the doctors would be dealing with both business aspects and medical aspects when they own their own private practice, I did not realize that they would also have to have knowledge on political policies as well. He also talked about health care becoming less affordable because of the high deductibles for most families. This made me think of a possible final product which would include finding out ways to allow lesser income patients to be able to visit the hospital for less charge, but I soon realized that this would require more of a governmental healthcare worker than a surgeon. I was also able to get another interview from there with the his coworker Dr.Huang