Week 5:
University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics

February 22, 2013

I tried hard to come up with something other than just a summary, but there’s not much in the fifth week that stuck out to me.  This isn’t to say that this is an inherently bad thing, it just means that I’ve gotten more into a solid groove at work (although, as you’ll see next week, this “solid groove” only lasted so long).  I show up at 8AM, eat at noon, and head back home at 5PM, working on the projects I’ve had for a few weeks and occasionally going to lab meetings or LIFE meetings (meetings that occur in a different lab where they discuss interview techniques and how certain interviews could have been performed better).  After I head back, I try to get some work for Cornell done and get to sleep at 10, both of which I promptly fail.  I think that’s one of the more general concepts that working here has taught me: treasure your weekends and be sure to use them as productively as possible, because you will not have the energy to make yourself get stuff done after a full day of work (well, for me, at least).  Of course, I can’t make general comments off of one internship experience, although I feel like any issues I’ve had (unclear deadlines far off in the future, no clear measurement for exactly what is ideal quantity and quality of work) are the sorts of things one just should expect when working in any professional setting.  Granted, when I’m used to most things being due a day or two in the future, it would make sense that I’m having trouble adjusting to multiple projects over extended time periods!

I still love the hospitals and clinics, though.  At least once a day, often when I’m feeling very restless, I’ll go walk around the General Hospital and just take in the atmosphere.  It’s very refreshing, and I just get caught up in the energy of this city of a building, with anyone from professionals to patients heading from place to place with their own agendas and stories.  It’s the kind of atmosphere that I think is unique to places like hospitals, where almost everyone, regardless of education or race or career or hobbies or what they had for breakfast, has to go.  It’s addicting, and it’s actually one of the main reasons I got interested in some sort of clinical work to begin with.  If nothing else, experiencing that atmosphere and knowing what it feels like will be very helpful in guiding my path in my future endeavors.

Next Week:  Pictures of the one part of the University of Iowa Hospitals and clinics that I have mentioned, but shown nothing of, in addition to a description of an opportunity I’ve been hoping for this entire internship.

Random ACT Insight: As I kind of touched on earlier, the ideas ACT presents (e.g. focusing on your values, not getting stuck in your head) aren’t particularly radical or uncommon.  Really, the power of ACT comes from taking these ideas, giving them scientific backing, and presenting them with minor tweaks that can make drastic differences (e.g. viewing commitment as something that takes place not in the future, but purely in the present moment, which can allow someone who fails to follow a commitment to get right back on the wagon, so to speak)