Author: naughton.29

Academic Enrichment Interview

For the Academic Enrichment piece of  my e-portfolio I interviewed Dr. Jonathan Thompson, a general surgeon at West Chester Hospital in Cincinnati. I had the opportunity to shadow him in practice back in high school and when I contacted him requesting an interview he was excited to participate.

Dr. Thompson received his undergraduate education at Miami University, majoring in microbiology and minoring in neuroscience. After that, he matriculated at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine and completed his residency there as well. Today he still works with UC Health, working primarily in laparoscopic weight loss surgery.

Weight loss surgery has been a topic of controversy in recent years, but to Dr. Thompson, the US is facing an epidemic of obesity, and may people have gotten to a point in their obesity that is beyond where a diet an exercise program can be of help. Considering people’s busy lives, he aims to make the burden of losing weight easier by helping the morbidly obese to get to a point where they can do the rest themselves.

In addition to being a successful surgeon, Dr. Thompson also devotes time to working in biomedical engineering. He is a specialist in laparoscopic surgery and frequently uses the da Vinci surgical system (or as he calls it, the robot). He shares his expertise and issues with engineers with the goal of developing better, more user-friendly and longer-lasting surgical equipment.

Dr. Thompson is passionate and dedicated to his work and I thank him for his time.

Ohio Health Aid

This year I dedicated my HSS Service project to Ohio Health Aid. I have so far given over 70 hours as the Chief of Community Outreach for the young organization, taking on responsibilities such as engaging with the community, establishing partnerships, and fundraising. Ohio Health Aid’s goal is to enhance the overall health of the Columbus community through health education, community activism, and preventive medicine. We accomplish this through volunteer work and our signature multi-specialty free clinic.

In my role I established a strong connection with Equitas Health, a local medical center and LGBT ally, which has brought several volunteering opportunities for OHA as well as a $250 donation towards our first screening in January. Additionally I have given great effort to our fundraising endeavors, from helping to run a donation program through PizzaRev to canvassing High Street looking for generous community donors.

As the Chief of the Community Outreach committee, I held a position of leadership. I have used my position to empower those in my committee to think creatively and to take the organization in the direction they want to go. I encourage them to use their connections and resources to make new partnerships, find places to volunteer, recruit sponsors, and engage those who we wish to serve. This upcoming year I will stay in the same position, and I plan to continue and improve my habits of motivating my committee to be as self-sufficient and motivated as possible. I want them to each have a vision for the organization and to go out and make it happen. Additionally I will maintain the connections I have established and continue to foster new partnerships.

This year has been incredibly rewarding. I have been very active in my participation with OHA, and the achievements we have made excite and motivate me to always do better. I hope to continue to serve Columbus through Ohio Health Aid for the rest of my time at Ohio State, and perhaps even beyond my years here.

A Year In Review

I have to admit, I think I haven’t changed much since last summer. I’m still the same person I was when I came in here, with the same personality, the same work ethic, the same aspirations, the same ridiculous sense of humor. The only major difference is that I’ve learned a whole lot. I’m better at studying, I’m better at prioritizing time, I know a lot of chemistry and a lot more about the brain than I thought I would by now. Coming in, I expected to have to treat college like a 40 hour work week and that HSS would be a way to make friends, network, volunteer, and build relationships. At this point I realize that I was right about college. Forty hours a week is sometimes not even enough, as my studies frequently take me into the weekend and demand most of what I thought would be free time. Sometimes I wish I had more time to hang out, play sports, and have fun, but then I remind myself why I’m here and that’s more than enough to keep myself focused and on task. I know what I want to do, and I know that the work I put in now will make the end result that much more worth it, because I’ll know that I deserve every bit of it. I wasn’t quite right about HSS. Thanks to the live and learn community on 3 Park, I’ve made some great friends who I hang out with on a daily basis. I also learned a few good lessons in the seminar first semester, such as how to construct a good resume and a few tips and tricks on stress management. HSS however has not quite been what I expected it to be regarding creating opportunities for academic growth or volunteering or networking. I had initially thought the organization would go out of the way to set up and organize these opportunities, and that those would make up the bulk of the HSS events and meetings; however, I have come to realize that HSS is a community and a resource, not a machine that hands out opportunities. If you want to gain something from HSS greater than the community building, it’s necessary to go out and get them yourself. HSS is a good resource to go through to help find opportunity, but it ultimately came down to being pragmatic and proactive that enabled me to accomplish the things I have this year, which I think is one of the core values of HSS and a fundamental skill to learn in college. For next year, I hope to continue the trajectory I’m on right now, and to grow my friend group, participate in more events than I was able to this semester, and seize more opportunities for academic and personal growth.

 

My most memorable service experiences have been with the Helping Hands Free Clinic on Morse Road. I go there once or twice a month to help tear down the clinic with a few other general body members of AED. Although the work is mundane and unexciting, we get to eat, socialize with the doctors and medical students, build relationships with the clinic administrators and the clinicians and pharmacists volunteering their time there, and it makes the job much more fun and it makes me looks forward to it each week I go. I have already formed a few strong relationships with some of the physicians and medical students. So what makes this my most memorable service work of the year is that I was able to fit in so smoothly and build the relationships I built. I’d like to continue to volunteer there next year and in the years to follow and continue to build the relationship I have with everyone who volunteers their time there.

Picture and a Brief Autobiography

Hi, my name is Daniel Naughton, and welcome to my e-Portfolio. I’m from Maineville, Ohio, which is near Cincinnati. I graduated from Kings High School, which is so close to Cedar Fair’s Kings Island that I could park there and still get to class on time.

At Kings, I was a student-athlete. I devoted time after school to studying and completing assignments, and then went to practice. My school schedule was dense and rigorous, and I made every effort to earn the grades I needed to earn. At the same time I participated in competitive sports all across the board, from football and cross country to wrestling and academic quiz team. I also played rugby and ultimate Frisbee with friends in my free time.

Now, I’m a freshman at the Ohio State University. I am a neuroscience (pre-) major. As you can tell, I’m part of Health Sciences Scholars, which means I get to meet, work and live with people who have similar goals to my own. Along with the scholars program, I’m also on a pre-med course of study. In eight years, I will be a certified, licensed physician.

I volunteer at Riverside Hospital, Helping Hands Free Clinic, and a few other places and am currently trying to land a good research internship for this summer.

Senior Night

Do.

Do.

A couple weekends ago  I went to the ARC with my friend, Scott. He’s from Tennessee and is into climbing – specifically bouldering. So I decided to tag along and see how it works – and let me tell you, climbing is difficult, and bouldering is a hell of a lot worse. I was able to climb the big walls on which we wear harnesses fairly easily, one of them bested me because I ran out of places to hold onto. Bouldering however is not the same. Bouldering is free climbing – no harnesses – and you have to follow a certain path, and each path has a set of moves you need to perform to reach the top of the wall. I was only able to get to the top of the easiest wall, and returned home with swollen, throbbing forearms.

Go.

Go.

During finals week, a group of friends and I decided to take a load off for a night, dress up all fancy, and go out for a nice, semi-formal dinner at the Spaghetti Warehouse. The group of us went out in blazers and dresses with a pocket full of change and a mind full of anything but finals. We took the COTA downtown, got off earlier than we needed to and had to walk the rest of the way there. Once we arrived, we checked our reservation, waited a bit in the room where we took these dapper photos, and soon after were seated. Amidst great conversation, we gorged ourselves full of (realitvely inexpensive) high quality Italian food, finally resulting in the best food coma I’ve had since move-in day.

Once we had all finished eating and paid, we left and walked around downtown looking at the lights and stunning architecture of Columbus’s most active districts. Some running around a place that looked like a park lead to us heading back to High Street, and walking up to the State House, where we hung around and made jokes about being law makers and what-not while waiting on a bus to take us back. When the COTA arrived, we hopped on and started singing A Capella style in the back of the bus, where a few strangers joined in as well.

Finally we returned home to Three Park, and let the reality of having to study for finals consume us, as we did previously to a few spaghetti bowls and lasagnas.

IMG_20160215_130150 IMG_20160215_130107

 

Eat.

Eat.

Last night I went out to Pies & Pints for a Valentine’s Day dinner. I felt slightly nervous, because I was out with a girl I met recently, and was doing my best to not say something stupid or do something that might make a bad impression. Naturally the date started with missing the bus –  by about a minute – and we spent the first fifteen or so minutes of the date out in the cold waiting for another COTA to come along. When the 2E showed up, we hopped on and were on the way down to the Short North. I checked Google Maps to make sure we would get off at the right stop, and as I looked up from my phone saw a sign that read “Pies & Pints”. I pulled the cord requesting a stop, and the bus took us about two blocks farther than we needed to go. She and I got off, walked back, and got seated. I managed to create some interesting conversation while we waited for the food, we learned about some of the crazier things we’ve done in our lives, and when our waitress returned with our food she told us, “So there are a few interesting things going on in the kitchen, and this pizza has the wrong sauce on it. We’re going to remake it correctly and bring that one out for free.” Nice turn of events. We got two pizzas for the price of one, all because some little topping was wrong.

We finished eating, got the check, and left to wait for the bus. However, the bus we were waiting on was late, and we thought perhaps we have the wrong time. So we decided to walk. Not two minutes into walking, the bus passed us. Fantastic, I thought sarcastically. We continued our walk in the frigid night and eventually got back to her dorm. We hugged and made plans for Friday to see Deadpool. All in all, I’d say it was a pretty successful night.

 

Year in Review

[ “Year in Review”  is where you should reflect on the past year and show how you have evolved as a person and as a student.  You may want to focus on your growth in a particular area (as a leader, scholar, researcher, etc.) or you may want to talk about your overall experience over the past year.  For more information, go to: http://honors-scholars.osu.edu/e-portfolio. Delete these instructions and add your own post.]