THE ONE WITH THE NEW BEGINNING...AGAIN

During the week of 8/21 to 8/27, the second year of Independent Study and Mentorship began and has already proven that this program is going to be taken to the next level in terms of workload, expectations, and results. The key highlights of this week was getting to know the new ISM 1 students and their topics of study, having a guest speaker, and also choosing a quote and mission statement to guide us through the year.

Being an ISM 2 student comes with being a mentor for the upcoming ISM 1 students. It is important for us to be the examples for the students who are in this program for the first time, as they are in the initial stages of figuring out the basics of weekly reports and the assessments. This new role gives us most responsibility and expands our professionalism as it is our duty to complete our work and guide others at a 100% level at all times.

Along with being established as mentors, our first guest speaker gave us a lecture on “Putting your dreams to the test”. Through this lecture, it gave a personal realization of thinking about whether or not what field we are studying is actually what we want to pursue in our life.

One challenge that I faced this week was figuring out what quote would best set the path for this year. My final choice was the wise words of Maya Angelou “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” I believe that this quote is something that I will keep me inspired and motivated throughout the course of the year to keep working towards my goal of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon in the future. An accomplishment this week is starting thinking about what goals should be worked on towards throughout the year.

During the next week, I would like to work on my introduction speech as well as begin making a contact list for future interviews with medical professionals. Also, I would like to research further about different cardiothoracic surgical procedures.