As the dust settles on what was a busy summer that absolutely flew by, I wanted to provide some remarks and reflections on everything I was involved in while at ASHP. I am going to outline my thoughts coming into the summer, projects I participated in, the copious amount of networking, and some extracurricular activities.
First and foremost, I did not have a well-defined plan of what I wanted to achieve out of this internship. I had submitted my application not believing to have even made it to the interview process let alone be selected. For that, I highly encourage everyone reading this to apply for some type of internship. They provide a myriad of skills, and experiences that are so vastly different from the one’s we train for in school, community pharmacies, or clinical settings. Not only do they provide a different skill set, but they can open a lot of doors via the vast networks most of the summer internships have available. Internships also can open your eyes to potential new career paths. So, despite not having a defined idea of what I want to do just yet, I have been able to reap so many benefits from these 10 weeks.
I was primarily working with the Office of Member Relations on various projects. They were generally focused on the student campaign, namely a revamping of the student campaign to be more focused to newer students (P1s and P2s). I provided a student’s perspective on a lot of the content we produced. I developed the PowerPoint that will be sent out to all SSHPs, which is incredibly neat knowing that I played a major part something I will be presenting to my student society. As part of the student campaign, I played a vital role in the development of a student recruitment video. I assisted with drafting a script and I was the talent for the recruitment video. Let me just say, I had absolutely no idea of how difficult it would be to write a video script and I assure you it took multiple draft versions, major overhauls, and on the spot editing, but in the end I learned so many things from this experience. Take a look at the finished product right here! I also had the opportunity to work on projects regarding policy - in which I identified if ASHP had any policies already in place regarding certain issues or if there was a gap in a policy. I also helped distill useful information from Choosing Wisely and AJHP to produce a standpoint for ASHP at large.
One of the major takeaways from my summer intern experience is the value of networking. On a professional level, I met a vast number of directors of pharmacy, chief pharmacy officers, residency directors, and in general some hugely impactful movers and shakers nationally. On the summer intern tours, I met students from various schools who opened my eyes to some incredible initiatives they had at their schools, some different ways of looking at the pharmacy profession, and different pharmacy career paths. Not only that, but the connections I made are going to last a lifetime and a few individuals have already helped me push forward my goals for the next year.
Just to summarize I believe an internship opportunity with ASHP has changed the course of my pharmacy career, and I highly encourage everyone to pursue an internship with ASHP (or anywhere for that matter)! If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to me on connect or via my personal email.