Author: Hailey Hauck

Highlight Kid’s Run

With the Columbus Marathon for Nationwide Children’s Hospital being tomorrow, October 20th, 2019, Highlight Magazine has thrown a children’s event the day before the race for the last several years, known as the Highlight Kid’s Run. The event hosts races for children ages 1-11, and volunteers are able to help with set-up, races, games, and other activities, and I was able to be a volunteer alongside others in International Affairs Scholars.

Upon arrival, we helped set up tracks for the specific races using traffic cones, along with setting up tables for medals and snacks. Most of the other volunteers and people working alongside us were from Columbus Parks and Recreation, and it was unbeknownst to me that they put together and helped with events like this. In fact, Parks and Rec put together many of the games, face-painting, balloon animals, and many other activities. The volunteers helped with separating kids into particular age groups, ran with kids, cheered them on, and helped give them water, snacks and medals. It was an overall very upbeat, fun activity, and it was really important that most of the kids seemed happy to be there, along with both parents and volunteers having a good time.

As I spend more and more time with children this semester, whether in volunteer events such as this, volunteering at COSI, or working as a research assistant in an emotion lab dealing with 3-4 year olds, I realize how much I actually love being around children. Although I still have a very long road ahead of me before I am able to make a major career decision such as specialization in a field, I think that no matter where I end up I want to be working with children. And right now I feel as if I am being more and more drawn to pediatric medicine and maybe even research.

Applying to STEM Summer Research Programs with Biological Science Scholars

I was able to attend this event yesterday, Wednesday evening, in order to learn more about STEM research as a possible way to spend my Summer of 2020.  Although I would love to participate in biological sciences or clinical research, I have also considered working as a Patient Care Assistant or Medical Scribe at the Wexner Center or Nationwide Children’s Hospital and maintaining this job throughout my third year of college.

This event focused on finding programs now in order to prepare applications by the usual deadline of the beginning of February, particularly looking at how to cultivate relationships in order to have STEM faculty that can write recommendation letters, using the Writing Center for essays and personal statements, and how to find these programs in the first place.  We were shown several websites to find both biology and clinical summer research programs, in which many of them were similar enough that you could use the same application for multiple, and many more of these positions were paid.

I plan to apply to summer research positions for undergraduate students at Nationwide Children’s Hospital and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and will be looking at the webpages given in order to look for others to apply for, particularly ones around Columbus. This session made me excited to further my research experience, and to be doing something towards my future schooling and career in the summer as well as during the regular school year.

The OSU Graduate and Professional School Expo

Today I had the privilege of attending Ohio State University’s graduate and professional school expo. Although I conversed with a few graduate faculty members about graduate programs in genetics and cancer biology, my main focus was on connecting with medical schools present at the expo. I was slightly disappointed that Ohio State’s medical school was not on the list of schools present, but I was able to learn more about two study abroad-based medical school, and the University of Cincinnati.

As both a pre-medicine biology student and the Service-Chair for the International Affairs Scholars,  I am really interested in combining these passions in medical school and beyond, but my main concern has been whether these programs are recognized American MD programs. Both the American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine and the Ross University College of Medicine begin their programs abroad, and spend the second two years of the program in the United States. Both are accredited MD schools without extra requirements to become an American physician as with many medical schools abroad.

Alongside being provided with this information, the representative from Ross University also offered advice on pre-medicine-focused clubs on campus to be involved in, finding clinical experience, and how to start forming relationships that will lead to recommendation letters.

The final school that I spoke to was the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, where the representative informed me of a summer program at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital known as SURF (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship) where I would be able to gain research, clinical, and career experience with faculty at the hospital. Although I would prefer to stay at Ohio State for summer research, this is something I plan to apply for in November.

Overall I gained a lot from this short experience talking with different representatives of different schools, and I’m excited to pursue the opportunities that they have opened up for me.

A Review of Freshman Year

Every new encounter during my freshman year at Ohio State was encompassed in a mixture of fear and excitement.  From moving in, starting classes, and figuring it all out to interviews for research positions and my first day as a COSI volunteer, I found myself nervous, but at the same time I couldn’t wait to get started.

Over the year I declared a minor in biological bases of behavior in the psychology department, was selected to be the Service Chair for the International Affairs Scholars Program, joined the Bioethics Society, and began teaching human evolution at COSI. I also secured a research position wherein I will be interviewing mothers and their children in a study of how maternal depression affects childhood emotional development.  I ended the year with a 3.726 GPA, and a Science GPA of 3.414.  I learned a lot from living away from home and making new friends while Ohio State equipped me to find new passions I had never even considered.

I plan to continue in all of the endeavors above in the coming years, while also embarking on new ones such as joining STEP for my sophomore year and volunteering at the College of Medicine, among other things.  I am excited to plan service events for my scholars program, present again in the Bioethics Society, and I am even excited for a majority of my classes this Autumn semester.

This summer I am simply planning to work at Starbucks in order to save money for the coming years, and volunteer at Adena Pike Medical Center in my hometown of Waverly, Ohio.  This volunteer position, although I have only logged 8 hours thus far, has allowed me to engage with several medical professionals and patients, and I couldn’t be more excited for where these engagements will take me, and what they will teach me.  An example of such an interaction is the sudden fear of being responsible for a patient by simply pushing her wheelchair to another location in the hospital, but it will be very helpful in the coming years, particularly for future research positions and applying to medical school.

“How HIV Impacted Us All” at the Ross Heart Hospital

After two exams this morning and before preparing for another tomorrow, I was able to attend this panel-style lecture on the impact of HIV featuring Dr. Teresa Long and Dr. Michael Para as they both recall their early encounters with the disease and what they learned from it.  Both were very involved in public education of what the disease was, and dealing with afflicted patients.  They recounted that the darkest part of the epidemic surrounded the fact that the people dying were very young, and at the beginning there really was nothing to be done, while another difficult part was how the epidemic was politicized and stigmatized.

It was interesting to hear that even in the early 1980s, physicians and other hospital staff did not deem it necessary to wear gloves or masks.  The HIV epidemic quickly changed this when many hospitals started turning away patients who could have the disease, while many people with the disease were left to die alone in hospitals that would take them.  People were stigmatized based on sexual orientation, being a hemophiliac, and even being an immigrant, because all were claimed to perpetrators in the popular media.  It was mentioned that the Wexner was the only hospital to accept HIV positive patients for quite a time, and the physicians talked about how eerie, and even scary, the 11th floor was for many people because this is where these patients were kept.

Although many afflicted were stigmatized, activism became very prevalent, with activists attending lectures, booing Reagan when he refused to talk about the epidemic, and so forth.  Those people were able to work closely with public health officials, and its interesting to see that they played quite a large role in slowing the public health emergency.  The lecture went on to establish that these two physicians believed that patient care is only about taking care of the patient, on both a micro and macro level, and that medicine isn’t about being on the clock, but about trying to solve a problem with the patient.  Although these are both important takeaways, the most impactful thing discussed was that currently, HIV is more about preventative healthcare, alongside many prevalent chronic illnesses in the United States, but no one wants to be an activist for preventative medicine, and this can become a major public health problem.

Presenting at the Undergraduate Bioethics Society

I was able to join the Undergraduate Bioethics Society this semester, a club in which group members have the opportunity to present on a modern bioethics issue they are passionate about, and spark a discussion for that particularly meeting.  Thus far, we have discussed Mount Carmel’s staff involved in overdosing patients on fentanyl, CRISPR-Cas9, and I was able to present on the growing measles epidemic in America due to the “Anti-vaxxer movement.”

Although there was a general consensus at that meeting that people should have to be vaccinated and their children should be vaccinated for all purposes with the exception of medical reasons.  With this in mind, I tried to gear discussion towards how we as future healthcare professionals would handle such a situation if we were to have a skeptical patient.  It was also discussed how in a world of mass media, is there anyway for people to really know the truth without having to conduct their own in-depth research.

Although we all have varying opinions on different points in the discussion, we all could agree that this movement could be and should be labeled as a public health emergency.  We are very aware that our small discussions aren’t necessarily changing anything, but it has been a great experience to stimulate and explore one of my passions with people who share this same passion, while allowing me to develop critical thinking, discussion, and public speaking skills.

A Day in the Life

Yesterday, February 28th, I had a day that very closely resembled what I always pictured a day of my college career looking like.  Between attending my classes, I had the opportunity to meet with a Global One Health representative to talk about possible research opportunities, and attend a lecture on Traditional Korean Medicine and an event known as Meet the Doctors.

By the end of my undergraduate career, I would like to do my own research, with the current pathway being to perform a correlation study between American views on peripheral country healthcare, particularly of that in Mozambique, local views on this same topic, and reality of what such a healthcare facility looks like, and what it may need.  This led me to meeting with Ashley through Global One Health to hopefully connect me with faculty on campus that I could work under, or could mentor me, and she has connected me with next-step people who I am looking forward to getting in touch with.

Later, I met Han Chae, the founder of Korea’s only college of Traditional Korean Medicine, during his lecture.  I hadn’t known a lot about the topic, but he explained that this traditional medicine was almost just another specialty of physician, and that he often referred people to, or was referred by, more “Western-medical” doctors.  I learned a lot about how acupuncture, heat therapy, and medicinal herbal teas were all big parts of Korea’s traditional medicine, and how western countries have begun utilizing some of these techniques, particularly acupuncture.

Thirdly, I attended a pre-medicine networking event that allowed me to meet with current OSU medical students and faculty.  I had many of my questions answered, and learned a lot about what I need to be doing in the coming years, but most importantly my drive to become a doctor was reified.  In the midsts of chemistry exams and biology lectures, it is sometimes difficult to remember what exactly I am working towards, but all of the events I had the opportunity to attend really helped remind me that it could all be worth it.

Global Fluency Training with Brad Gosche

Through the International Affairs Scholars Program, I attended a two-hour Global Fluency Training session with the Vice President of Education & Communications of the Columbus Council of World Affairs, Brad Gosche.  He introduced Global Fluency as being more than Cultural Competency, and distinguished between stereotyping of a group of people and generalizing a culture, particularly mentioning that generalization is always being modified by experience.

After this introduction, he spoke on the “3-5 Second Rule” when interacting in different cultures, meaning that we first observe what another does when approaching us, quickly reflect, and then act.  This allows us to really strive to abide by customs in a new place, and at the very least, to try our bests at not offending someone.  Differences between cultures, and the possible awkwardness of not being aware of cultural differences, were demonstrated by a group activity, in which one group was given a set of rules to be very loud and touchy, while the other was instructed to be quiet, and to make zero contact including eye contact.

The presentation was really audience-engaging, informative, and funny.  He consistently used examples as broad as an entire country’s culture, or his own personal stories, to go along with every part of the presentation.  Although the presentation was great, I wish he would have addressed how different genders from different cultures should go about approaching each other, but he gave me several book suggestions for looking into this myself.  My personal favorite part was his discussion of Hofstede’s 6-Cultural Dimensions Model, and even discussed flaws within it, along with other models such as the Lewis Model.  He suggested using Hofstede’s model online to see where different cultures and countries fall in certain categories, and compare them to a self-evaluation to identity gaps that you could improve upon.

First Time Volunteering with APOP

I became involved in the Anthropology Public Outreach Program (APOP) after hearing about the club at a mini involvement fair discussed in a previous post.  This past Saturday, February 9th, I had the opportunity to volunteer at COSI with them for the first time.

The club has an activity cart in the dinosaur exhibit of COSI that teaches human evolution, and our ancestry/relatives ranging form chimpanzees to Lucy, and to some species I had never even heard of.  It was a lot of information to learn in a very small span of time, but I learned a lot, and I’m excited to really know everything that I will be teaching kids.  At the moment, I am limited to discussing the chimpanzee, human skull binding, Lucy, bipedalism, and playing a game of putting the skulls in order of relatedness to humans or chimpanzees.

Although I find evolution to be very interesing, and the evolution and Genesis debate is one of my favorite things to study in my free time, I never expected kids to be so eager to learn about human evolution.  Most of the kids were between 2 and 11 years old, but there were very few kids who were bored with what we were talking about.  When initially asked what animal the chimpanzee skull came from, almost all of the kids said “T-Rex,” and many other funny, unexpected things.  Overall it was a really fun experience, and it’s something that I’ll be able to do at least once a month.

 

Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service

For this year’s MLK Day, I was able to have “a day on, instead of a day off” as Ohio State likes to put it.  This service event included around 700 students that were able to go to different nonprofit locations around Columbus to help give back to the community.  I went with the International Affairs Scholars group to COSI, where we were able to put together kits that grade school kids use in the classroom to help them learn about how arteries in the body work, sent to various schools all over the country, along with a video to go along with the project.  There were various “assembly line” jobs to put these kits together, including cutting tubes, counting straws, counting rubber bands, etc.

Alongside being able to serve my community, I was also able to see various performances before the service event actually began, including two dances, one lone singer, and a choir.  Coming from a place with so little diversity, it was really interesting to see so much celebration of it for a day I had never thought much about.