Last Days | #5

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time spent in Washington DC at their Health Department. I have always loved DC since I was born nearby in Virginia so I’ve always had a sense of belonging there. Although, I’ve been to DC a multitude of times, this time was a totally different experience. I was on my own basically to explore the city and to commute to work, which helped me learn a thing or two about this thing called “adulting”. I learned really much how people depend on the metro system and how many people actually don’t even own cars at all, which is so crazy to me. I definitely see how spoiled I am because I would dread going to the grocery store simply because I was going to have to carry all my items home instead of driving them back to my house. I also realized how expensive the metro really is, which I spent roughly $10 per day for seven weeks. It took a huge amount of my scholarship money (still salty). Haha. But, I’m grateful to have been able to work in  the country’s capital, I got to see first hand how influential the health department is in DC and everything that goes into running it as well.

One of my favorite parts however, would have to have been touring the White House. On my last day we took a tour of the East Wing of the White House, where I got to see the green room, blue room, red room, east room etc. It was a nice experience even though I really was hoping to see the Obama’s since they occasionally come and surprise the guests while they are touring. Sadly, the Obama’s were at Martha’s Vineyard. It was a great experience and now I can say I’ve toured the White House, especially while the best president to ever grace the White House was in office.

Lastly, I’m grateful for this opportunity to spend my summer learning more about public health. I now understand the importance of public health and policy in a way I was once unfamiliar with before. I see how clinical medicine and public health must work hand in hand to close equity gaps in our communities. I hope to share my knowledge in the future and /I know that this experience will definitely stick with me forever.

Go Blue Wherever You Go | #4

My internship at DC DOH has been such a great one. When I heard of the internship from my brother back in December, I didn’t look into it much until February-March. While on the DOH website, I ran into the Director’s corner. I took a chance and emailed her, little did I know how that one email would impact my experience. Dr. Nesbitt, the director, who happens to be a Michigan Alum, arranged a phone call with me and took 15 minutes which turned into 30 minutes to talk about her career choices and her time as a Michigan student to me. She talked about internship opportunities at DOH, and I told her I had applied to their college internship program and that I was eager to hear back. I never thought that she would remember me or even go as far as to head down to HR and personally request my resume. It didn’t stop there, she handed my resume out to many of her staff members to make sure someone had a summer project for me to work on. Which is how I ended up working for my boss, Patrice, on a medical marijuana project. Dr. Nesbitt made sure Patrice had called me and that I had accepted the position as well.

I have never had anyone look out for me like that before. It really is true that wherever you go you’ll find people who associate themselves with UMich or actually went there. So when I finally made it to DC, everyone thought Dr. Nesbitt was my aunt. The running joke was that I got the “Nesbitt hook up”, which was fine with me. Haha. She’s such an amazing lady and role model, by her early 30’s she ran Louisville’s Health Department. Isn’t that amazing? I’ve seen the way she conducts herself in meetings and hearing and I’m always in awe of her wisdom. Not only does she truly understand clinical medicine and public health but she presents her knowledge in a way that even common folk could understand. I aspire to be as influential as Dr. Nesbitt someday even if I don’t end up as a director of a health department.

Lastly, Dr. Nesbitt took my coworkers and I out to eat at Busboys and Poets. Apparently she has NEVER taken any interns out before, so that means she really liked us. Although, she can be seem intimidating, she’s really chill and down to earth. She listened to our career choices and gave us words of encouragement and advice. She reminisced on her med school and residency days as well. Overall, it was great experience and I’m so grateful to of had the opportunity to work with her. 

 

Overdosing | #3

Today was my favorite day thus far. Usually on Fridays, I do admin work for the medical marijuana program, but not today! I got to sit in on three meetings, the first meeting was for the Marijuana Private Club Task Force. They are trying to create private clubs in DC, where medical marijuana patients can smoke their marijuana in peace and be in accordance with the law. The next meeting was super interesting, it was with the chief medical examiner in DC, Dr. Roger Mitchell. He’s a successful, BLACK man that has turned the DC system around. Since Dr. Mitchell has come to DC, he has performed over 1,000 autopsies, which has cleared their back log tremendously. He also talked about where he got his passion for forensics and pathology. Similarly to me, he knew since the age of 8 that he wanted to become a doctor and he made sure he did just that. My major take away point from his speech was to always make sure you’re putting yourself in the position to become closer to your aspirations and educating yourself on what you need to do to get there. Once you sit down and make a master plan everything seems in your reach and actually doable. He truly gave me more determination to do more than I already am to make sure I achieve what I have set out to do with my life.

Lastly, I saw Dr. Mitchell again at the last meeting which was for the Monthly Heroin TaskForce meeting. There was a massive heroin overdose, which resulted in 18 deaths in DC in April. There was additional research that needed to conducted and the results showed that 10/18 deaths were heroin laced with fentanyl, 3/18 were fentanyl only. Fentanyl has been proven to be unresponsive to naloxone, which is used to prevent overdoses. Sometimes it takes 3 doses instead of one when fentanyl is involved. So this meeting was held to understand how to educate the public and the drug users so a case like this won’t happen again. Overall, I had a great day and I’m grateful for this awesome experience. To learn more about Dr. Mitchell, read the article in the link below from The Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/using-the-lessons-of-the-dead-to-save-the-living/2016/07/09/09d12d3a-075b-11e6-b283-e79d81c63c1b_story.html?postshare=1931468166838161&tid=ss_tw

Hearings | #2

My favorite experiences so far would have to be the two court hearings that I’ve been to. Washington DC had 4 bills that were being discussed: raising the age you can buy tobacco from 18 to 21, prohibiting the use of tobacco at sporting events, prohibiting e-cigarettes in places where tobacco is banned, and lastly allowing pharmacists to give hormonal contraception without a doctor’s prescription. So there were two hearing, one for the first two issues and another one for the last two issues, in each case there were public witnesses ranging from veterans, to doctors, to spokesmen, children, and lastly as the government witness, someone from the Department of Health.

In the most recent case involving the contraceptives, the well spoken director of DOH, Dr. LaQuandra Nesbitt, gave the testimony and it was absolutely flawless. Dr. Nesbitt and her MD and MPH, so she has practiced clinical medicine and is now dealing with the public health side. She gave great insight on to how this bill will help close the health equity gap in some of the wards in DC, but also the risks that this bill can propose. I was amazing and there was nothing that the chairperson, Ms. Yvette Alexander, asked that Dr. Nesbitt couldn’t develop an answer for. She is definitely someone I look up to and I’m proud to know she’s a WOLVERINE! YAY GO BLUE WHEREVER YOU GO! Michigan truly builds leaders and I can’t wait to make my impact one day in an amazing way just like Dr. Nesbitt and other wolverines in the health care system.