Blog 7: Second Interview Preparation

1.  Who is your mentor and where do they work?  If their workplace does not reflect their expertise, what makes them an expert? 

• Mentor: Cara Johnson
• She's an RN - Manager Regional Care Management 
• Works with Health Care Partners - North Region
• I'm not quote sure what she does exactly, but I will as soon as we meet in person and I start going in for mentoring hours. 

2.  What five questions will you ask them about their background?

1. Where did you go to school and how did you come across in choosing the school?
2. What motivates you to keep doing what you're doing today? 
3. What is one of the biggest struggles or obstacles you had to face, if any, to get to where you are now? How did you face it?
4. How did you come across choosing the career path? Were you influenced? 
5. If you were to look back to where you first started school in college, if you could change one thing that would impact or would have impacted your life today, what would it be? Why?

Blog 6 - Advisory Prep

1. What has worked well for you concerning senior project this year?  What has made it a positive experience for you?   

• When speaking of my senior project, I'd say that my determination has probably been the best thing so far. This is because currently, I still don't have a mentor, I don't have a set topic, and I'm stressing out over this. However, the most positive experience was my interview #1. That was such a great thing to experience, because usually I'm the interviewee, not the person who conducts the interviews. So, in regards to my senior project, what's worked well is are the blog postings, and the turn it in submissions as well. I'm a great big geek when it comes to technology, so having this senior project blog excites me very  much.

2. What are you finding difficult concerning senior project?  How can you adapt to make that portion work better for you?  How might the senior team help?

• With my senior project, I'm finding difficulty obtaining a mentor. Sure, people can assume that it's quite easy, but unfortunately for me it's been quite the struggle. Since I'm struggling so much with finding a mentor, that leads me to question my topic and asking myself if thats really what I want. An adaption that I can make so that this project betters out for me is maybe seeking for another topic, and trying to find a mentor within that topic. The senior team can help out by maybe letting me know if they know anyone in the medical field, in the dentistry field, or in the criminal justice field. Hopefully by the end of this month I'm able to come up with a new topic, or find a mentor that will stand by my side throughout my senior year. 

Blog 5 - Interview 1 Reflection

1. What is the most important thing I learned from the interview?  Is there anything I would do differently for other interviews?

• The most important thing I learned from the interview was that being in the medical field has many challenges in which you're forced to find yourself before you start falling apart. I learned that you can't help a patient, or anyone in general, if you yourself aren't okay. Accepting yourself as a person, knowing your strengths and weakness, and reassuring yourself of your beliefs and morals are very critical to do while living by this career. However, I also learned that if this is something I wasn't to do, something I love, something I'm passionate about, then it's worth every second of my life. Something that I can improve upon for future interviews, is get more specific with my questions. 

2. Did I get additional resources and contacts?  What is the most useful?  Why?

• The most useful additional resources that my interviewee provided me with, was reading and looking into nursing journals (AJN), to provide me with more in depth answers to any questions that I may have. The reason to why these journals would be helpful, is because of the fact that their vocabulary is a lot easier to read and understand, than the vocabulary of a specialized doctor. Another helpful suggestion, was to talk to or interview a beside nurse, an LVN, or a PA, since they'd have a little more background in the the primary care part of this project, than a regular doctor would. 

3. What makes my interviewee qualified to help me? 

• The reason to why this interviewee is qualified to help me, is because of the fact that she's a registered nurse that works in the emergency room department of a hospital that's located in Pasadena. She can tell you all about patients, being a leader, taking care of yourself, and working for long shift hours. The fact that she knows so much about everything, and she's able to explain how everything ties in and comes together makes her more than qualified to help me. Her skills, qualities, and her persona allowed for her to be qualified to start me off in the right foot with this project. 

 - Link to voice memo: Interview #1 - 

* CLICK HERE* 

Blog 4 - House Advisory Prep 1

Through my senior topic, Primary Care with Patients, I hope to accomplish lots of things in which I can appreciate later in life. First of all, I'd like to learn what it truly means to give care to someone in which you've never met before in your life. How is it exactly that you help someone else get better, when in reality we're all a bit messy ourselves. I'd like to learn how things work and correlate to one another allowing for a nurse or a doctor to provide the assistance a person needs. I hope that I learn enough about this topic, so that I can make the choice of whether or not I should remain in this particular medical field in the future years to follow. Communication skills, lots of patience, and optimism are also great qualities in which I hope to discover while working through this particular senior project. I hope that my mentorship allows for growth upon learning not only the basics, but also the entire picture of making sure a patient has been fully satisfied with their medical services. Last but not least, I hope to accomplish a great year of knowledge. Starting from researching sources, to interviewing people, all the way to the day of the presentation, I hope that I'm able to expand qualities, skills, and create lots of new experiences through the course of time.

Blog 3 - First Interview Preparation

Who do you plan to interview? 

• I plan to interview Cecilia Maldonado because she's a nurse that works in the ER, and that's very fascinating to me. It's quite amazing how a human being can function normally, and be able to assist with her knowledge in an ER; So, getting an inside on that should be quite the adventure. Allowing her to express her experience with patients, her love for her job, and her admirations for surgeons will be quite amazing to hear. Understanding her passion towards medicine can highly influence my future career and me. 

Questions that I will ask my interviewee:

1.  I'm interested in studying health medical practices, working with patents, and being in the environment of a hospital. What can you tell me about it? 
2.  In your perspective, what's the hardest part of being a nurse? Why?
3. Who do you recommend I talk to get more information?
4. What's the reason you chose this career?
5. What makes you want to do what you do every day of your life?
6.  How are you supposed to react to a severe situation every time you're in the ER?




Blog 2 - Summer Mentorship

1. List the contact name, phone number, and organization of the person with whom you volunteered.

- Temporary Mentor - 

• Alejandra Robledo - Mariscos Martin 
• * I can email personal information (number, email address, etc.). *

2. What qualified this person as an expert in your topic choice? 

• Alejandra Robledo is a qualified expert of this topic due to the fact that she comes form a family that owns quite a bit of businesses. So, as she grew up, she understood the foundations of owning a restaurant, and as she grew older, she decided to run her dad's restaurant. Of course, nothing is ever easy in life, so I thought that Alejandra would be the perfect expert in the topic of Small Business Managements: Restaurants because of her attitude and her perseverance through all of this. In order for Alejandra to be where she is right now, she struggled quite a bit, and its truly inspiring all that a human being can do. So, I look up to her, and I will now learn from her abilities of running a successful restaurant. 

3. List three questions for further exploration now that you've completed your summer hours.  

1. What is the basic foundation to keeping a good reputation and great reviews of a restaurant?
2. How do you manage time, money, and patience all at once?
3. What types of managements work best when trying to create a successful restaurant? 

4. What is the most important thing you gained from this experience? Why?

• The most important thing I gained from this experience was probably learning that the voice of a person has so much more power than we think. A single person's voice on yelp can either make or break a business, book, etc. I was taught that business revolves around money, and people revolve around money, therefore if you want a successful project, then you must have both.

5. What is your senior project topic going to be?  How did mentorship help you make your decision?  Please explain.

• If this mentor works out, my senior topic will probably be 'Customer Service in Public Restaurants'. Working for 10 hours with Alejandra allowed me to understand that the customers are responsible for either making or breaking a restaurant. It allowed to acknowledge that not every customer is polite and nice, so how do you deal with a complicated guest and succeed in your facility all at once? How is it that customers, their feedback, and their opinions dictate whether or not the restaurant is good or not? It's impressive how strong the human being can be. 

Senior Project Hours (Summer Mentorship)

Blog 1 – Senior Final Lesson/Interview Reflection

1. What three lessons were most helpful for you to see, and why?

1. Psychiatric Support was a helpful topic because it talked about providing the best possible services to someone who takes apart of that facility. This topic explain what the required Vital Tests are, and how they're conducted. In fact, in this activity, we were able to try out the medical equipment and play role of a patient and a doctor with a partner. 
2. Nursing was a helpful topic because I personally want to pursue my topic in Primary care, so this topic was sort of a foundation base of how the nurses provide primary care to those in need. This topic explained that without a nurse, there really isn't anyone else who can provide that care that you need when you go to a doctor/hospital for a checkup.
3. Clinical Psychology was a helpful topic because it allowed me to become an open minded person and accept the fact that no one is a "normal/perfect" human being. We all have our phobias, our imperfections, and our mental disorders, whether it be noticeable or not, we're all on the same boat here.  

2. List one thing that you learned about the senior project in interviews that will help you get off to a good start?

• One thing I learned about the senior projects in interviews that can help me start off on a good note, was to get to know my mentor and to start forming a close relationship with that person, since we'll be spending about 60 or more hours together throughout the course of the year. If this first mentor isn't the one, then the seniors advised to keep my head up and keep searching for more. Eventually, I'll find the one mentor who will care and be able to assist me throughout this journey. 

3. What topic(s) are you considering, and why?

• The topics that I'm considering are Primary Care and Criminal Profiling because I've always had a passion in helping those in need, especially when it comes to the health perspective  Becoming a doctor, and then specializing into a neurosurgeon, has always been my dream since I was little, so why not take all the opportunities that come my way to make this dream come true. I also like to figure things out and work with a team to find a solution. I'd like to possibly have Criminal Profiling as a topic, since I like being able to gather clues, and identify who did what, and why they did what they did. 

4. What EQ do you think might be interesting to consider in guiding a project like this? (Please don't worry about any sort of formula...we want this question to come from your genuine interest).

1. What is the best way that a primary doctor can ensure the well being of a patient? 
2. What is the best influential state of mind that allows a serial killer to convict danger towards a victim?
3. What is the most efficient way to provide a patient with their medical care plan?

5. What are some ideas you have about finding summer mentorship?

• One of my ideas for finding a mentorship this summer is to apply and volunteer at Casa Colina since I want to pursue my career in the medical field. When speaking of primary care, I can also find a way to volunteer at a fire station, but with the paramedics since they provide anyone with the primary care needed in a state of an emergency. Another idea is to find my mentor at a hospital like, Queen of the Valley or in Kaiser Permanent. 
• Some ideas for finding a mentor in the Criminal Profiling range, is to go to a police department, and sign up to volunteer. Then, I'd talk to the Sergeant in charge and explain my whole senior project, hoping that he'll support this explorer and start to work with me throughout the course of time.