Small Steps

This week proved to be a new step in my journey and in ISM. The main focus of this week was creating my original work proposal, which due to being such a big part of the ISM journey, became somewhat stressful because I had to narrow down on my interests further. The high value of the original work, however, only further motivated me to spend true time and energy into brainstorming possible ideas that would benefit me in the program. It was very important to me to create an idea that would stand out on its own and show the amount of effort and passion I have for the medical field, specifically of pediatric surgery.

Coming up with my original work was one of the most challenging things I've done in ISM. Not only was it difficult to actually brainstorm ideas, but also to decide on one to advance myself on a final project. From the time I started working on it till submission, the entire process took me nearly five hours because it was very difficult to think of a possible project that was not only highly impactful on the community but the attainable within the level of knowledge that I have acquired thus far. When I did finally decide on my topic, dealing with demographic of vconge tal abnormalities, I was very proud of it. This is because, in my opinion, it was a very unique topic in comparison to other peers and this is what I strived for. Because the topic not only requires research but additional analysis on top of that, planning and execution must be as accurate as possible. However another problem that I face with taking this specific topic is that I do need to find a mentor that would specialize in or at least have a strong base in birth defects, as without that I will not be able to conduct a possible final project in relations to my original work .I do believe that with proper work on this final project it will be highly successful, but I do know that I have a tendency to be a procrastinator so I will need to be working ahead and order to ensure that this project turns out as well as possible.

Overall this week was very impactful on me because I realizes where I actually have a stronger interest in terms of smaller specializations in the medical field. All this time I was looking into just general pediatric surgeons, but I think with the choosing of my original work I subconsciously showed a strong interest in birth defects which is something that I have not yet focused intently on. I think it will be exciting to see how this project turns out and how my interests developed further depending on my relations to the original work and possibly final project. I hope by the next week I have started my original work and begun my process and planning.