The summer before one’s junior year is said to be one of the most important summers of one’s professional career development. I saw my brother stress over his search for an engineering internship and grasp the importance of securing an opportunity for future success. I knew about the Women and Gender Studies Fellowship Program through one of my fellow research peers. However, immersive summer research was still an intimidating realm that I was nervous but eager to jump into.
I had an in-depth discussion with one of my current research mentors and expressed to her how I was still very interested in studying Women’s Health, however, I wanted to explore more niches within the Obstetrics & Gynecology Department at Michigan Medicine. I was apprehensive about searching new for new mentorship; I’ve had the same research mentor from freshman year who has gone above and beyond to show me more about the world of clinical research. But in the end, she fully supported me in my decision to search for projects of my own personal interest in maternal mortality and health policy. I was in a new space trying to understand how to network in order to find someone who fit the criteria I was looking for. I specifically wanted someone who was somewhat early in their career, second who had previous academic research experience, and who was knowledgeable about the process of scientific writing. I set these goals for myself because I wanted to utilize this summer in order to learn more about the writing process. It is important to me as a young researcher and a future scientist to master these academic skills in order to support underserved communities. This is something I plan to take with me and build upon throughout my research career.
Low and behold in my Women and Gender Studies 400 course, taught by Dr. Timothy Johnson and Dr. Lisa Harris, there were many guest speakers who came to inspire the large lecture of students. One of the physicians who came and spoke with us was Dr. Lindsay Admon, an OBGYN who is based out of the Institute For Health Policy and Innovation. She came to our class and gave an amazing lecture on the racial disparities of maternal mortality in the United States and how today’s statistics intersect with insurance coverage across the country. When she gave her lecture I was fully impressed and interested to learn about these topics as I saw this as a sign of someone who really could help to challenge me in areas that I’ve been wanting to study. Dr. Admon talked a lot about how even with the Affordable Care Act’s nationwide and state expansions on Medicaid, the United States is still far behind many other developed countries and there are even more disparities that have yet to be fully understood.
After her lecture, I immediately sent her an email the following week. I told her that I’d been accepted into WAGSFP and really wanted her to mentor me about this specific area that affects Women’s Health. I shared my work and abstracts from freshman year and explained to her that I was very passionate about those topics.
She was quick to respond and we had set up our first Zoom call. To be continued… [continued in Maya’s Blog #2]