This past week in ISM has been relatively uneventful because my mentor visits pick back up again in two weeks and the Salvando Corazones team has been in Peru. I tried to see if there was anything else Aldo wanted me to do with the patient education packets and/or the itinerary and he seemed to not want my help anymore so I didn’t do that part of my final product as was planned either. Looking back, this whole final product has been a series of improv moments and just being flexible with whatever cards I am dealt. I am excited to see Ellie again and shadow her because it’s been quite a while and I haven’t really been able to do that this year as many times as last year. Aside from ISM, I have been making big college decisions for next year and quite honestly, it’s scary to think that next year will be completely different from this year in terms of location, school, people, professors, friends, and pretty much everything. However, I am grateful that ISM has prepared me as much as it has for being on my own, becoming self-motivated, and not being afraid to go after what I want, especially when other people my age are.
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This past week in ISM has been pretty uneventful. The Salvando Corazones team is now in Peru and operating on patients so I think that is pretty cool. I will soon need to start working on my final presentation night speech and perfecting that presentation so that it is ready to go before all the senior events start and I become overwhelmed. Looking back at this past year, my mentorship has changed a lot from the year prior. Last year, Ellie was a lot more hands-on with mentoring me and this year, she was more of an overseer rather than being right there with me the whole way. I really liked how I was able to learn everything myself through trial and error this way but when I had a problem with something, she was always willing to help. There was no way this trip planning process would’ve been a success without her and I am so grateful to have such a great mentor. As my final year in ISM is winding down to a close, it’s very impactful to think of where I started in ISM 1 last year as an aspiring cardiovascular surgeon and where I am now, not quite knowing what my next step will be in college.
This past week was spring break so I didn’t do much in relation to ISM or school in general. The Salvando Corazones team leaves in less than a week and I am very excited to see what this year’s success! Originally, the plan was for me to make a master itinerary for the group but Aldo already has somebody on that task and I think that it would just be more work and disorganization than it’s worth for me to try and meddle in with the workings of the group. Since I am not going on the trip, I am sort of out of the loop, making it difficult for me to keep up with how fast the details and decisions change. Other than the itinerary, I still plan on tweaking my patient education packets so that they are a bit more comprehensive and patient-oriented than last time. I hope to get this done this week so that they can be printed and taken with the team to Peru. When the group gets back, I will begin on the final assessment of the trip as I did last year, making the presentation and maybe even the article for the Baylor Foundation and for the donors.
This past week in ISM has been kind of uneventful but I hope to change that over the course of the next few weeks. This next week, I hope to get started on compiling the master itinerary for the actual trip and tweaking the patient education packets to make them better for this next time around. I will also be creating my final presentation night invitations and brochures this week so that they can be ready to print. I cannot believe how fast this year has flown by- it feels like my first final presentation night was just yesterday. It’s amazing to look back and see how far everything has come from the very first speech I gave in ISM - shaky hands and all. I will be rehearsing my final speech soon, and this will be the last time I will ever practice a speech in front of my ISM class! While I am studying the same topic as I was last year, the content that I have covered this year is much different and I have taken on a much different role throughout this past year in regards to my mentor/mentee relationship with Ellie. I have been on my own much more and I am grateful that Ellie has trusted me enough to not embarrass her when she leaves me alone with her colleagues.
This past week in ISM has been pretty uneventful. The major part of my final product is complete and now all that I have to do is draft the master itinerary and refine the patient education packets. I don’t believe that there is much else I need to do but I will keep in contact with Aldo and Ellie about it just to make sure that they don’t need me for anything. I will begin working on the master itinerary as well as the patient handbooks in early march so I have the latest information and am not constantly making changes. In regards to my mentorship with Ellie, I hope to continue to meet with her as I did last year (about once a month for a large amount of time) to continue to satisfy the ISM requirements. Luckily, my project finished a little earlier than planned this year so I am not rushed to complete it as I was last year. I might also look into observing a few surgeries (if I can) with one or two of the physicians that I met through the Salvando Corazones fundraising event. I look forward to seeing the progress of the trip as it happens and doing whatever I can for the people in Peru from where I am in DFW.
This past week in ISM, I attended the fundraising party for the Salvando Corazones Medical Mission that I helped plan. This event was kind of daunting at first because while I had interacted with and seen the names of the people going on the trip, I had yet to meet them all face to face (I had only met with Aldo and Mike so far). I just lingered at the back of the room for around 30 minutes before I decided to just suck it up and join a conversation. By the end of the night, I had spoken to pretty much everyone in the room and had introduced myself to everyone that would be going on the trip in March. One lesson that I definitely learned this night was the importance of networking and just taking that first step to get out there. While I was very hesitant at first to become a part of a crowd of people that I didn’t know at all, I finally just pushed away my insecurities and joined in. With the help of a few people who really helped include me in the conversation, I finally got into the groove of meeting people and making conversation with people who were complete strangers. While I wasn’t at first, I am grateful that Ellie wasn’t there to be my safety net because I was finally able to get out on my own and interact with the professional world.
This past week in ISM has been very eventful because I might finally be able to go to Peru!!! My presence on the medical mission trip has been something I haven’t been quite sure about because the lead surgeon, Aldo, has been busy with other things and vague about my involvement with the actual trip. However, in our meeting last week, he officially invited me to come with the team on the trip so that I could help out further and really see my project come to life. What made it even better was that he immediately turned to his computer and looked up flights to Lima for the dates we’ll be gone. Other than the news about my going on the trip, Aldo and I had a very productive meeting where we solidified a few loose aspects about the fundraiser we are planning for February 16th and a few more details regarding the trip. The $30k grant from the Baylor Foundation, that Ellie so graciously secured for Aldo, is now very close to being accessible by team members for hotel and flight booking. It is very cool to see this trip come together so nicely because there has been so much time and effort behind the scenes with it. I look forward to Peru (once I can get my parents to say yes :)).
This past week in ISM has been relatively uneventful because I didn’t have a meeting with Aldo and Ellie (it was Aldo’s birthday), and I was not given many tasks from the meeting prior. Our biggest problem as of right now is the fact that the money granted to us by the Baylor foundation isn’t accessible yet, making the trip planning processes very difficult without funds. Besides the trip, though, I did give my original work speech to my ISM class. I covered a little bit of the secondary research that I did earlier in the year, some informational interviews from the summer, and the process behind planning the medical mission trip. I thought the speech went very well and I had a lot of people’s attention throughout it. While I did not get the chance to rehearse as much as I would have liked, my delivery was pretty smooth, with the exception of a few spots where I stumbled over my words or repeated myself a little bit. At this point last year, I was still reading my speech off of my paper so it is very eye-opening to see how far I have come in the public speaking department since I have joined ISM.
This past week in ISM, I had another meeting with Aldo, Ellie, and Mike to discuss developments in the trip planning and how to get ahold of the funding we are receiving from the baylor foundation. In comparison to other meetings that we’ve had, I felt that the hour or so we spent together in Aldo’s office this past Thursday was very productive. We secured a venue for the february fundraiser and finally finalized the list of people who are going on the trip. The tshirt fundraiser is continuing to flourish with over $700 raised already. The option to go on the trip is still iffy for me but with the number of people going from Baylor now up to 14, I don’t think that the chances are looking very good, especially since I can’t offer any medical help like everybody else can. However, I am still happy to be working for this great cause even though I might have to watch the team succeed from afar. I am almost complete with the required hours for my final product which means I will be well over the required amount - which is very good news! I also had my original work speech last class. Despite there being a few stumbles here and there, I thought that the speech actually went very well and that it was my best one yet.
This past week in ISM has been pretty uneventful due to the fact that I fell sick on Tuesday and missed out on the Research Showcase. I had prepared my binder and board to be show-ready so the fact that I couldn’t show off my hard work was kind of disappointing. However, I heard that there was a good turn out and that it went well for most people. Ellie, Dr. Rafael, and I had another meeting planned for Thursday to go over trip planning details but Dr. Rafael cancelled last minute, so we weren’t able to touch base in person. This is the third time he’s cancelled a meeting during this planning process so the lack of progress we’re seeing with planning details can largely be attributed to his absence and miscommunication. However, the T-shirt fundraiser has been doing well on its own despite my illness and lack of communication with Dr. Rafael. We are on track to raising more than we thought we would so hopefully the trend continues and people continue to buy T-shirts! This next week, we have to start giving speeches about our original work so I will need to prepare my presentation and prepare my “script” beforehand so I’m not going in blind.
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