Do Research.... check!

Part of what med schools want to read in your application is that you have experience doing research. They want to know you understand what it takes to add to the body of scientific knowledge and what happens behind the scenes to create the drugs, procedures and therapies that make up the medical field. So, I took a $15,000 pay cut and took a clinical research position interviewing a population of East Baltimore folks with a history of IV drug injection and/or that are HIV+.

Although the learning curve of this job was the opposite of steep, I will take away many life lessons from my coworkers, the principal investigator of the study, and especially the participants.

• A smile and kind greeting goes a very long way.
• People want to be treated with respect and want me to be honest with them.
• I never know what the last 24 hours was like for someone else - and sometimes listening is more important than gathering data.
• I will never win an argument with a participant - because there should never be an argument to "win." I will always have to adapt my approach to meet the participant where they are.

There are more I'm sure. Additionally, the core values I learned from Teach For America really apply to life in general - and I have found them extremely useful throughout this experience.

Today I saw a participant that did not want to partake in the breathing test. He was rude, loud and on the edge of threatening. After stepping back, I now realize that there was nothing I could have said or done to encourage this person to participate, and furthermore, there was nothing I said or did to make this person angry. This was not the first uncooperative participant I've dealt with, and it certainly won't be the last. In the medical field, just as in the teaching world, there is extreme value in being able to "read" a person, acknowledge where that person is in life and adapt my approach, tone, word selection, and body language to meet that person where they are and help them move forward to where they need to be. (Thanks TFA!)