Blog #26|: Senior Project Reflection

(1) Positive Statement

What are you most proud of in your 2-Hour Presentation and/or your senior project? Why?
I am really proud of my 2nd activity. The students were able to demonstrate an epidural injection. I thought it was really fun and fascinating and I had real equipment that is used for the actual procedure.

(2) Questions to Consider

a.     What assessment would you give yourself on your 2-Hour Presentation (self-assessment)?

      P-        

b.     What assessment would you give yourself on your overall senior project (self-assessment)?

      P-

(3) What worked for you in your senior project?

(4) (What didn't work) If you had a time machine, what would have you done differently to improve your senior project if you could go back in time?

I would have made sure to be more decisive with my actual topic and essential question. I wasted a lot of time because I couldn't find adequate mentorship to help me answer my essential question. This is why I kept changing it.

(5) Finding Value

How has the senior project been helpful to you in your future endeavors?   Be specific and use examples.

The senior project in its entirety has been an overall amazing learning and growing experience. It pushed me out of my comfort zone and although I procrastinated on a few things it taught me about what kind of work ethics and study habits I need in order to succeed and do better in the future. For example, for some time I had procrastinated on finding mentorship and this really set me back as far as gathering information and broadening my knowledge on my topic. As a result of my procrastination I spend the very last months of school cramming on information and trying to grasp the understanding  that could only have been achieved through an extensive amount of time with mentorship.

Blog #25|: Mentorship

Literal

·     Log of specific hours with a total and a description of your duties:  

Mentorship Log 

·     Contact Name & Number: 

            ☞ Kathleen Rivero (Volunteer Coordinator @ San Dimas Community Hospital) : 909.599.6811

                        ☞ Dr. John Dimowo MD (Mentor from Pine Avenue Urgent Care) : 

951.966.6626

Interpretive

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

  
    In the summer and throughout first semester I began mentorship at San Dimas Community Hospital working in the Emergency Room and in second semester when I narrowed down my project topic I found mentorship with Dr. Dimowo. I actually gained something from each mentorship experience. Working at the hospital and mentoring under Dr. Dimowo have taught me more about patient care. Along with my usual duties as a volunteer in the emergency room I was expected to restock supplies and clean up stations after patients leave. But the best part is when I actually got to interact with the patients and/or their family members and have the opportunity to assist them with any basic needs; fetching them water or food from the cafeteria or even keeping the company while they wait for the doctor. It is these moments that I look forward to the most because I have the privilege of serving these patients even in the simplest ways possible with genuine care and compassion. I took what I learned from this experience and was able to take it a step further during my mentorship with Dr. Dimowo. He was an inspiring model of what patient care should be like. On multiple occasions I was able to observe excellent patient interaction. This goes further than brief check-up and prescription write offs. Rather Dr. Dimowo made it a point in each session to follow up with the patient on not only their health condition but on their lives in general; hobbies, family, work, etc. This takes patient care and a doctor/patient relationship to another level when it is more personal. 

 Applied

     How has what you’ve done helped you to answer your EQ?  Please explain.

    Most of what I have learned has been through being able to observe and ask Dr. Dimowo questions. I learned first hand why each of my answers is important in answering my essential question. I was able to talk to patients and ask them about their treatment regimen and how it is helping them cope with their condition and their responses were all positive. Not only does this mean that my mentor is doing an excellent job, it means that each treatment is effective and is helping them live more comfortable lives. 

This is one of the local anesthetics Dr. Dimowo uses often for trigger point injections and other procedures. Trigger point injections target specific areas of taut muscle knots which cause patients pain. Lidocaine relaxes the muscles and releases the knots 

This is an x-ray of the lumbar vertebrae. I observed Dr. Dimowo as he performed an epidural injection.

It's supposed to look something like this ⇡⇡⇡

I was able to observe Dr. Dimowo  deliver facet (joint) injections as well. which looks like:  

Blog #24|: Exit Interview Questions

1.   What is your essential question?  What is the best answer to your question and why?

My essential question is how can an anesthesiologist best treat chronic pain? My best answer is referring patients to physical therapy. Although this isn’t a direct treatment from an anesthesiologist, it is a part of the anesthesiologists’ treatment plan.

2.   What process did you take to arrive at this answer?

After shadowing my mentor and seeing how he deals with patients who come in with various conditions whether it be arthritis, fibromyalgia, chronic back pain, etc. I concluded that although medication and minor invasive procedures are effective in treating and reducing patient pain, physical therapy yields the most benefit for the patients’ health long-term.

3.   What problems did you face?  How did you resolve them?

The biggest problem I faced was finding mentorship. I knew that mentorship would be the most important factor in helping me answer my essential question so it was imperative that I find it. I overcame the challenge of not having mentorship by searching fervently and diligently for one. I ended up changing my essential question a bit to help me find a suitable mentor that could help me answer it.

4.   What are the two most significant sources you used to answer your essential question and why?

My mentor Dr. John Dimowo and an article called Physical Therapy for Chronic Pain by spine universe. My mentor really took me under his wing and told/showed me everything I needed to know in order to help me answer my essential question. For example, he taught me about different medications that he prescribed to patients and even showed me how he performed certain procedures in order to treat their pain. One time he was telling me about a common local anesthetic called lidocaine, it’s other name is xylocaine (pronounced like zy-loh-cane), which happens to sound very similar to my name and so he remembers my name because of that. The article “Physical Therapy for Chronic Pain” helped my with my  best answer because it taught me all of the common physical therapy treatments patients may go through to treat their pain. For example, it told me about massage therapy, electrotherapy, etc.

5. What is your product and why?

My product is a character building trait that I have picked up through this whole experience which is improving in patient care. What I mean by this is, through volunteering in the ER at San Dimas community hospital and being mentored by Dr. Dimowo I have learned what it means to serve patients. Serving patients goes beyond providing them healthcare. It means being genuinely compassionate and concerned for their well being. For example, any doctor can check up on a patient for their health conditions and prescribe treatment, but it takes an excellent doctor to check up on everything about the patient including how they are doing besides their health condition. I learned this from Dr. Dimowo. I noticed that whenever he has a patient that he sees frequently, he will ask them how their family is doing or how their job is or what they’ve been up to. He really follows up with them on not only their condition, but on the patients themselves.

Blog # 23|: 2014 Interview

         Who did you interview and what house are they in?

      Bradley Schott: West House

2.  What ideas do you have for your senior project and why?

I’m not really sure. I was thinking about doing computer science or something in that field. I’m not really sure. Still exploring different options.

3.  What do you plan to do for your summer 10 hour mentorship experience?

Well my dad is a construction worker so I might work with him or with one of his friends. Or with my mom. She’s an IT at Cal Poly. So I might work with her or her boss. She’s a software engineer.

4.  What do you hope to see or expect to see in watching the 2013 2-hour presentations?

Looking for ideas for myself that I can do. Other than that I don’t know. Curious to see what other people are doing. Looking for peoples’ effort.

5.  What questions do you have that I can answer about senior year or senior project (or what additional information did you tell them about senior year or senior project)?

So basically it’s a 2hour presentation right? How is the time divided?

Basic format of a presentation although you can customize it, it really just depends on how much time you want to spend on each;

·      Intro| foundation (introducing EQ & explaining it)

·      Answer 1 | Activity 1

·      Answer 2 | Activity 2

·      Answer 3 | Activity 3

·      Conclusion | talk about important sources

Minimum speaking time in order to pass the presentation is thirty minutes. But this should cover content only. So this would be information in your answers. The rest of the time you can divide and figure out on your own.

Do you think people make a bigger deal than it really is? Because from what I hear, people are always saying that it’s really hard and stressful.

For most people it is stressful. Only because there’s a lot of other things going on in senior year as well, such as i-search, experimentation and investigation project, 3 column and a whole bunch of other things BUT all of the other things are supposed to help you with your final 2 hour presentation. So although it may seem stressful and a lot of work, make sure to take advantage of everything because it will ultimately help you in many ways with your senior project. For example, the 3 column will help you with your exit interview. I-search can potentially help you in the organization of your presentation, and there is also mentorship, which will obviously help you a great deal in answering your essential question.

For the most part I think the hype is just out there to intimidate you. Anyone can look at senior project and think it’s scary because of all the work that is put into it. There are assignments due weekly.  But once you’re actually going through everything and working on it you’ll see that it’s all worth it in the end.