First Week at OHSU

I finished what has been an exciting, educational and blur of a first week at my internship with OHSU. I started my internship by showing up to the wrong building at OHSU as I went to the Biomedical Research building instead of the Biomedical Information and Communication building. Dr. Sakaguchi was kind enough to walk over to where I thought I was supposed to be and he walked me over to where I was supposed to be. My first three hours at OHSU basically turned out to be a crash course on what types of degrees OHSU offers in the Healthcare industry. After Dr. Sakaguchi taught me everything about the three programs and degrees, he instructed me on what he would need me to do over the summer. The rest of the day was spent doing research about other programs that offer degrees in the Healthcare industry. My second day I was asked to find out what the requirements were for a school of Public Health to get certified by the College of Education and Public Health (CEPH). Once I found the procedures to become certified I had to put them into a slideshow presentation that I presented to the Division Head and Dr. Sakaguchi on Wednesday. I felt pretty comfortable doing the research and making the slideshow and was happy that I had done so many of them in college. I was a little nervous presenting on Wednesday but I felt Linfield had prepared me pretty well. The presentation went smoothly and both Dr. .Sakaguchi and the head of the department were pleased with my presentation. I was happy that my Career Explorations class at Linfield had taught me how to make a professional slideshow presentation because it made me a lot more confident while I gave my presentation. The Career Explorations class really prepared me well on how to carry myself in a professional environment and after doing so many job shadows, I really felt pretty comfortable being dressed up and acting like a "grown up." The division that I work with at OHSU is pretty casual and I like the fact that everyone is so easy going. I feel that my Marketing class has really prepared me well for all of the market research that I have been doing and all of my business classes have really helped with preparing me for the business language and terms that are used. As my internship progresses I expect that I will be able to give more input on decision making instead of just supplying background information like I am doing right now. I think my tasks will become more complicated as well. I feel good about working with Dr. Sakaguchi because he is very trusting and answers my questions with very good explanations. I usually eat lunch with him and talk to him for a few minutes after work in a more casual manner and I feel that in these conversations I might learn just as much as from all of the work that I am doing. Dr. Sakaguchi is a very experienced and has accomplished many things in his life, I am looking forward to working with him and learning from him for the next few weeks!