My Reflection On My Experience As A Clinical Assistant

Question 1 - What experience have you had that has given you insight into the patients you hope to eventually serve?
During my paramedic education, I had to fulfill clinical hours in the emergency department at Legacy Salmon Creek. During that time, I’ve interacted with patients who have suffered life-threatening ailments, but many of my interactions were with patients who weren’t experiencing life-threatening episodes. Understandingly, the latter of these patients use the emergency department because they lack the health insurance to afford a primary care physician or the local community lacks the resources to assist some special demographics: Drug abusers, psychiatric patients, the homeless, geriatrics and undocumented immigrants, etc. As …show more content…
I remember the disappointment I felt in myself when I was an emergency medical technician and was confronted with a patient who had a breathing problem and my limited therapeutic interventions did not relieve their symptoms. This led me to pursue my paramedic license which eventually directed me to medicine. Like many, I feel a sense of accomplishment when I can fulfill my duties at work and if my duty was to bring ease to my patients and I couldn’t then I would feel uneasy. However, As I spend more time in the hospital and through shadowing, I see limitations persist at every level in healthcare. There will always be patients that I can’t fully heal because of my scope of practice or because of the inappropriate resources. Through this realization, I am beginning to understand that that the unease I feel is solely of my own making and what’s best for the patient isn’t always my direct attention or even my direct care. I am learning that healthcare is a made of professional who can provide proper care for patients which I have the limited capacity to help. If I can’t help the individual directly, I hope the training invested into me during medical school will enlighten my knowledge of all the other resources in which I can direct my patients …show more content…
I didn’t know how to begin shadowing and paradoxically, many research jobs listed experience as a minimum qualification. I was left feeling frustrated, out-of-place and even silly for attempting to become a physician. During a casual conversation with my supervisor for the Clinical Research Investigative Studies Program (CRISP), I mentioned the problem I was facing. The response I received was that I needed to get out of my comfort zone and find ways to gain the experience I sought for. Her advice was a simple one: Talk to other students and network. This was difficult to accept because I blamed the system for preventing me from all these experiences which I sought for and her feedback placed the onus of responsibility back on me to find creative ways to gain experience. I began talking to other CRISP volunteers about their experiences and listened to their successes and shortcomings. From that, I started emailing primary investigators who researched topics which sparked my interest. I received many rejections and many more nonresponses. However, of those who which did respond, one of them became my boss for the research lab I currently work at. I met Dana Zive whom I have volunteered for in the Resuscitation Outcome Consortium and through her, I was introduced to Dr. Mohamud Daya whom I’ve helped publish three abstracts and shadowed occasionally. My supervisor’s criticism was