Fellow Fellows

I want to use this blog post to give a brief shout-out to my fellow New York fellows, because they are really awesome and deserving of it! As Julie mentioned in her below blog post, it has been so nice to have a pre-established group with which to experience fun city things. Everyone is incredibly friendly (I guess that goes to show the kind of people who are interested in pursuing nonprofit careers!), and everyone is extremely dedicated to the program. For instance, Avion, who is one of the fellows at Association to Benefit Children, put a huge amount of effort into helping coordinate a very successful Career Night, during which we had the opportunity to speak with Princeton alums and other professionals connected to the AlumniCorps community who are working in education, healthcare, social enterprise, law, business, and more. Julie and Susanna have been doing a wonderful job planning fun activities for us as co-chairs of the Social Alumni Relations Committee--last week's comedy show was attended by most of the New York fellows and was hilarious! And Eleanor was key to helping secure Anne-Marie Slaughter as a speaker at our April seminar on her highly circulated article, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All." Clearly, I owe a lot to all of my fellow fellows for making this year such a well-rounded and valuable experience--thank you New York fellows!

Hangin Out

A few weeks ago, the New York fellows met up for a free happy hour event at a bar in midtown. We had a blast catching up in a more casual setting and getting to know each other in a place other than a Madison Ave mansion! Here is our attempt at a selfie:
The social committee has planned another event, this time an improv show at Upright Citizens Brigade, for next week. It's so fun to have a group to explore the city with!

Transitions

This past month has been a rather exciting time for me, as the Character Education Partnership (CEP) is in a major period of transition, with lots of staff coming in and leaving and major changes on every level, from the organizational mission and vision down to the software.

Being part of an organization that is in a process of such significant transition can be a little confusing sometimes but it is also is tremendously educational and presents major opportunities. For example, because of various staff departures, I've ended up managing CEP's social media accounts, e-marketing and blog. Though this isn't really the direction I originally expected when I began the fellowship, it's been probably the most engaging thing I've done so far and taught me a great deal about inbound marketing strategies, search engine optimization and a lot of other things that I would have never been introduced to in my role as I originally understood it. I guess the main takeaway from this experience for me has been that at a small organization, there's a lot of space for people to make their own roles, if they choose to and that this can lead to to the discovery and development of new talents and skills.

The "Community" Piece of "Parent/Community Outreach Fellow"

Somehow, I think I may have managed to go over half a year without mentioning an exciting project that I've been working on since I arrived at NYCCD: our brand new Junior Board! This coming Tuesday, we will be holding the first meeting/orientation of the Junior Board, which will be the fruits of about six months of slow but steady labor. The concept for the Junior Board was conceived months before I began my fellowship. Ideally comprised of about 20 well-connected young professionals, the Junior Board was envisioned as being an arm for raising both funds and awareness for our mission in New York, with the concrete goal of contributing towards the building of a new center-based preschool. Yet while multiple planning sessions had already taken place when I first came on board, very few concrete steps had been taken towards finding the right group of people to get involved in this endeavor and developing suggested strategies for them to use in order to work towards our larger goals--mainly because the staff members involved simply did not have the time to dedicate to essentially create a Board from nothing. So, I have had the opportunity to take the lead on many aspects of this project. Among other efforts to move the project along, I reached out to the New York Junior League in order to partner with their Nonprofit Board training course, so that those who are taking the class would learn about our Board. I also developed materials to send to Board candidates, and I researched other Junior Boards in order to create an application in line with what other established nonprofits ask prospective Board members to complete. After many conference calls with staff and Board co-chairs, we have a very impressive group of about 25 young professionals and parents, who will be meeting each other for the first time on Tuesday to learn more about our agency's work and discuss their goals for the year. I'm really excited to see the whole group together and hear their ideas for how NYCCD can advance its mission in the city. With any luck, I will hopefully see the results of my efforts pay off for the agency--literally as well as figuratively!

Another Man’s Moccasins

Character Education Partnership sent out a few holiday mailings in end of Novembver-early December.  From the intellectual high-jumps of creating spreadsheets with different categories for different mailings and signatures, to the physical mud run of folding, sealing, and stamping envelopes, I’ve gained a deeper appreciation for teamwork and for physical donation requests.  Out of sympathy for the labour, it’d be nice to be able to donate substantially to every non-profit that’s hit me up for cash in the last month.  Though I’ve volunteered at non-profits in the past, working for one has viscerally made me appreciate how much donations count.

Holiday Hats

My job at NYCCD is not always particularly glamorous. I was reminded of this during the hours I spent on the stage of our special needs preschool wrapping toy after toy to be distributed to each of the 80 students (plus some of their siblings), snacking on chocolate covered pretzels and Pepperidge Farm cookies and jamming to the non-stop Christmas music on 106.7 lite FM. I was reminded of this yet again as I cheerfully donned a cheap Santa hat at the NewYork-Presbyterian pediatric clinic so that I could better fit in with the other festively-dressed registrants behind the front desk checking in the children for their doctors' appointments. I have learned again and again that meeting the needs of my organization often requires this foregoing of glamor. The school's holiday season needs, among other things, required a food preparer to heat up the dishes for the International Feast, and an amateur graphic designer to create the holiday party invitation: I wore both of these hats this year. Yet as I sit in the pediatric clinic waiting room and listen to a mother describe how her young daughter cries almost every night now that her father no longer lives with the family, or to a mother who is completely overwhelmed by her son's behavioral problems and believes that he may be bipolar, I realize that this principle applies just as much on an individual level as it does on an organizational level. The needs of others are oftentimes far from glamorous, and this fellowship has been a window into the lives of those who have experienced much more hardship than I have.  At times I am saddened by my own inability to help some of the children I encounter--what can I do when a mother of a three-year-old who is barely speaking refuses to bring her child to see the psychologist because she believes she is fine? However, sometimes meaningfully meeting the needs of others simply requires one willing ear in a room full of crying babies to listen to a mother's concerns and tell her that someone is here who can help her. It requires one person to set fears, preconceptions, and judgment aside; meet the family where they are at; and reassure them they are not alone. I am proud to say that I have worn this hat this year, and I look forward to continue wearing it in 2013.

The Breast Care Center

I've done a poor job posting about my Project 55 position at the UCSF Breast Care Center (BCC), but am trying to change that this weekend. I'll start with a general post about the internship program, and then follow it up with posts about my specific work and life in San Francisco.

I began work at the BCC at the beginning of July. The collaboration with Project 55 is just part of a broader BCC intern program. There is another fellow from Princeton, a few from Harvard (they have a similar partnership), and then a number from other schools. In total, there are 10 interns. One just took the MCAT, and will be applying to med school next year, but the other 9 are all applying now.

The program really is set up as a nice 1 or 2 year commitment for students who might be interested in medicine, and it's viewed more as an educational opportunity than a strict job. At the beginning of the year, we had talks with different doctors in the clinic on breast oncology, surgery, reconstruction, pathology, and more. We are encouraged to go to the weekly meetings such as Tumor Board and other lectures that take place at UCSF (there have been a few on health policy, for example).

The student interns are involved in a number of different trials that go on at the Breast Care Center. Some of them are breast cancer drug trials, such as I-SPY 2 (which is what I am working on). Another big project is the ATHENA Breast Health Network, a UC-wide collaboration that aims to follow women screened for breast cancer and generate a repository of risk and outcome data. There are also quality of life studies, including yoga classes to prevent lymphadema and scalp cooling caps to be worn during chemotherapy to reduce hair loss. Within each of these trials, interns also take on different roles. Some are clinical coordinators, and do a lot of the work to consent patients for the trials, schedule appointments, follow up with patients, and make sure that the trial generally runs smoothly. Other interns are involved in laboratory work, policy research, and health economics research. Since there are so many different positions, and so much to be done at the BCC, there is the opportunity to tailor projects to your own strengths and interests (computer science majors, for example who work on the IT side of trials). Most of these projects have websites and other information online, so I would encourage anyone applying to get a sense of which projects most interest them. Of course, the day-to-day work on any given project may not entirely recapitulate the overall aims of the research. These studies are often long-term, and clinical trials do involve a lot of data collection/entering, paperwork, and so on.

The one constant for everyone in the internship is Decision Services, which is a sort of patient advocacy program. A lot of patients coming into the BCC have treatment options, such as the choice between a mastectomy or a lumpectomy with radiation. Especially for women who have been recently diagnosed, these appointments come at an emotional, stressful time, and can include an overwhelming amount of information. We work with many of these patients, calling them before appointments to help them to generate a written list of questions for their doctor. We then accompany the patients to their appointment, taking notes for them and making an audio recording. Patients really appreciate the service, and the comfort of having someone navigate the process with them. It's also informative and powerful for us as interns, because we really get to know the patients and become intimately aware of their priorities, goals, and fears about treatment. Someone once said that it is more like shadowing the patient than shadowing the doctor, and I certainly agree with that assessment.

I'll follow this post up with more details about my specific work and experience in San Francisco. If you can't tell from this post, though, I'm having a great time at the BCC. It's certainly a good deal of work, but I've had a lot of new experiences and have learned a tremendous amount.