Third Week at OHSU

My third week at OHSU was by far the most demanding week at my internship thus far. The biggest project that I had was to create a presentation that included a matrix, which compared all of the MS programs in Healthcare Management in the nation. Once I determined what all of the major components were to compare between programs, it wasn't very difficult to create the matrix. I have been learning a lot more about using Microsoft Excel and I am getting better and faster with the program every week. This is a skill that I believe will be useful in my future career.
The most important lesson I learned this week is to always present yourself well and take every networking opportunity that is available to you. I learned this after I gave my presentation about the MS programs. The three main people I presented to were my supervisor, the head of the division, and one of the professors in the school of medicine, Mike Neal. When my supervisor introduced me to Mike all he told me was that Mike was one of their professors and worked a little as a consultant for their program development. I assumed that Mike was someone in the medical field and had a little background in business so although I was polite to him, I didn't make any great efforts to make him a contact. After the presentation Mike talked with me a little and it turns out that he had worked at Intel for a very long time and at different points of his career been the director of marketing for them and also the director of product development. I didn't think it at first, but Mike will be a great contact for me to have because he worked at Intel for so long, was very well respected and worked in so many different divisions.
Dr. Sakaguchi and I talked about a meeting that I sat in on and he taught me an important lesson about how to bring up information that conflicts with what your boss believes to be reliable data. It was a very interesting and valuable lesson to learn because it is hard to find a way to bring up information that conflicts with someone who has more authority then you and doesn't come off like you are "challenging" your boss. Dr. Sakaguchi has been doing a great job of teaching me not just about how to conduct market research but also about conducting yourself in an office environment and your relationships with your co-workers and superiors. I will be getting deeper in my market research this week and be assembling a market segment analysis which will push me to work hard and efficiently.