OHSU Start

Hi my name is Alex White and I am doing a four week internship at OHSU starting tomorrow, June 20th. I will be interning with Dr. Ronald Sakaguchi who is a dean at the Dental School at OHSU and is also in charge of the Hospital Administration program as well. My internship will consist of doing market research to help develop a marketing plan as well as doing research and developing the business plan for the Hospital Administration program at OHSU. I am pretty nervous about starting as I already feel a little overwhelmed but I'm also very excited. I did an orientation this past Tuesday so I at least know where to park and how to navigate through the maze of buildings up on the hill, I got to ride in the tram which was pretty cool too. Tomorrow will actually be the first time I meet Dr. Sakaguchi in person, as I only did a phone interview with him before I got the internship. I am excited to start working with him and learning from him because of his background and all of his experience. He got his PHD in dentistry, practiced dentistry, then taught at the Dental School and eventually became the dean of the Dental School. He also got an MBA which has led him to becoming in charge of the Hospital Administration program.
I am very thankful that I got this internship because I was only able to apply at the last minute. I had already accepted an internship at the sales company Up N' Automated until the second to last week of school when I was told that my internship had been dropped. The person who was going to be my supervisor at the company had received a promotion and wasn't going to be in town during the summer and because the company was very small, there wasn't any other employees that would be able to supervise and teach me. I had been accepted for the internship in April so I had not been paying attention to any other types of internship opportunities for the summer so I was devastated when they called me to tell me that my internship had been cancelled for the summer. However, now I am very eager to start and I know once I start that I won't be so nervous. I am sure that I will learn a lot through my research, work and just from being around Dr. Sakaguchi. I have never done an internship like this before so it will be a very new and exciting experience!