Three goals to achieve for the internship are building relationships with people I work with, apply new skills, and understanding how global health and health service administration works together. All three of my professional goals were met during my time at the internship. I was able to build a relationship with my preceptor Dr. Michelle A. Kekeh, the program manager Myngoc Nguyen, and Ms. Jamie who is there when Dr. Kekeh and MyNgoc are not there.  I can apply the new skills that I learned to my career as a hospital administrator.  Coding is an important skill that I learned because I have to use excel to input data and create a histogram.

Another skill learned was developing a questionnaire survey for the Healthy Chesapeake Food Connection survey. I had to go on certain websites to find questions on race, health impacts, well-being. The other section was on the farmer markets such as distance and how often people go to the farmer markets.

Last skill I want to talk about is doing a literature review for the C2C Ghana project. The topic I did the literature review on was handwashing and infectious diseases. There were interesting articles I read about people not washing their hands. Also, looked at some of the graphs in one of the articles that explained the infectious diseases and intervention used. Research is important because I have to be able to write reports.

The BSHS and Management courses I took connected the most to my internship.  I took a global health course that opened my eyes to what is going on in the world. Also, discussed communicable and noncommunicable diseases as well as infectious diseases and the impact it on communities locally and globally. For CHP 430W, I was able to identify the theory of stress and coping. At times I could tell when Dr. Kekeh and MyNgoc are stressed about their various projects deadlines. They would often express how much work they have to do throughout the week. I was able to see what they do behind the scenes and understand how much stress they are under.  MGMT 340: Human Resource is important because it determines the needs of the organization. The needs of the center include more staff to help Dr. Kekeh and MyNgoc with the heavy workload. Organizational Behavior is about why people act the way they do. For the internship, I was successfully able to work with other individuals personalities.  MGMT 350: Employee Relations is another class that discusses how to communicate with others as well as social, legal, and ethical issues. Doing the video for the C2C Ghana project helped me with my communication skill by getting me out of my comfort zone by delivering an important message about handwashing to the boys and girls in Ghana. The video helped me with my body language toward others on and off camera.

New skills and knowledge I learned from the internship were developing a questionnaire survey, literature review, video recording, and coding. I can build up my skills in coding as I go to graduate school to become a hospital administrator. Also, learned about organizational structure. As a future hospital administrator, I need to know how to deal with conflicts in stressful situations. One frustration I had was on the day of video recording for the C2C Ghana project. Ms. Jamie was there to sign me on the computer so I can do my tasks and practice my script. When I came back from lunch, I was sent home because Ms. Jamie had a doctor appointment. Dr. Kekeh and MyNgoc were not back from the meeting they had in Chesapeake, Virginia yet. They do not like to leave their interns/volunteers alone because some staff might question us on why we are the in the center unsupervised.  Dr. Kekeh contacted me and said to be back at center at 4 pm to do a practice run-through and go to the location of where the video recording is at. The resolution is understanding that it was a miscommunication between Ms. Jamie, MyNgoc, and Dr.Kekeh. Dr. Kekeh and MyNgoc apologized for having me and a volunteer to come back to the center after being sent home. I learned to not make a big deal about the situation and it was a miscommunication error. After the situation, Dr.Kekeh and MyNgoc communicated better when they will not be at the center.

This internship was beneficial to me because I learned new skills that can be used in graduate school and my career as a hospital administrator.  I am grateful for challenging myself to do something new outside of the hospital setting from volunteering. Center for Global Health project topics relates to the BSHS courses. The C2C Ghana project on handwashing relates to a global health class that discussed infectious disease impact. My supervisor, Dr.Kekeh, was very helpful in explaining her directions of what she is looking for on each project. Dr. Kekeh gave me words of encouragement as I get ready to graduate that I will never forget.