Week 7:
Learning How to Balance

July 17, 2017

I’m learning a lot about medicine from this internship, but I am also learning a lot about life- particularly my life. Lately I have had a lot of health appointments which take up so much of my time. Sickness has also been an issue this week, which takes out time as well. Missing time out of the workday at the hospital is so frustrating for myself because there is so much I could be doing and things I could be learning. I have to remember that this is part of my life, and not something that I should let bring me down and cause guilt. In life, work and health must be balanced. I would never want to compromise my health for work, and so I will not. Health is too valuable. Luckily, Cornell has taught me how to hit the ground running after missing a day, so I won’t let illness or appointments hold me back.

A major thing I have learned recently is the basics of SAS, an analytics software. I noticed in the beginning of my internship that the lab uses SAS to analyze data, and I thought it would be nice if I could try to learn. So, I found a free online course that taught me the very basics of SAS. Through this course I’ve been able to focus my research on data the professor provides, and I was lucky enough to come across mania data, which is a component of bipolar disorder (one of the mood disorders that Dr. Fiedorowicz’s lab focuses on). Doing my own project for the course on the side has really been beneficial to me. I’ve found it’s a fun way to learn more about the topic and really get hands on with it. While I’m not sure if I’m quite proficient with SAS to use it for the data I’m looking at in the lab, I am going to give it a try and test my skills.

After days and days of research for the literature review I am helping with, I finally have all my notes compiled. The writing process has started. I love writing, and so I am really excited to do it, but I also am very intimidated to be writing with people who have so much more experience! However, I know it is all part of the learning process, and they will all help me improve. Working at the Writing Studio at Cornell has prepared me for this moment, I know constructive criticism is good, I am very open to it (and I know a thing or two about writing). I hope that at least some of what I’ve written can be helpful so that I can contribute and help make my coworkers lives easier. I’ve actually just finished the draft and sent it in to be read over, so hopefully I will get feedback soon that will help me improve it and make it a valuable piece of this literature review.