Final Reflection Questions

1. While writing your paper, what did you learn about the research process?
Prior to writing my paper, I did not know how to do a proper works cited page in MLA
format or write in-text citations. Being able to create a proper works cited page is
important because without giving credit to others for their information and work, I could
receive an incomplete or failing grade. Additionally, in the college setting, I will need to
know how to use in-text citations when writing a research paper. Before writing this
paper, I was fearful of meeting the length requirement for the Pride Paper, however, by
learning how to use different search engine tools such as Ebscohost, I now am confident
in my ability to write lengthy papers without sounding redundant. This research paper
helped me to feel confident in my ability to write a research paper in college.
2. How was the research related to your mentor hours?
My research directly somewhat related to my mentor hours. Although my paper focused
on pediatric neurology and my mentor was a neurologist, most of my research focused on
the history of neurology and the glass ceiling for women in the medical field. In my
paper, I researched topics such as early Egyptian neurological procedures, the invention
of the microscope and its effect of the neurology field, and major contributors to
psychology. The glass ceiling portion of my research paper described how even if a
womans performance is the same as a mans in her designated medical career, she
statistically will still make less money and have less likely chances of getting promoted
or having a leadership position. However, my mentor hours focused mainly on treating
and diagnosing Multiple Sclerosis, something that I did not research or write about in my
research paper. Also, my mentor was a neurologist and my paper focused on pediatric
neurology, so her treatment methods / style were different since she was treating adult
patients opposed to child patients.
3. Summarize the mentor hours that you completed.
I was able to observe my mentor, Dr. Schneider, conduct routine examinations on her
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients. First, she tested each patient's fine motor skills by
having them touch their fingers together and put their finger to their nose. After this, she
would test the nerve endings in the patient's feet by asking them to point and flex their
feet and used a boomerang-shaped tool in order to observe the extent to which their
nerves were still active and working. Finally, she would test the patients balance by
asking them to walk in a straight line, walk on releve, and walk with flexed feet. Since
Dr. Schneider mostly treats patients with MS, most of my mentor hours involved
observing her continue the routine MS checkups on different patients. In order to do this,
checked the patient's nerve endings, balance, and fine motor skills. Also, she usually had
one to two first-time appointments each day for new patients that she took into her
practice. First, she would review their medical history and explain the rules of her
 practice (i.e. show up on time for each appointment and more than two cancelled visits
without sufficient notice will result in the patient being dismissed from her practice).
Next, she would review any recent x-rays the patient has had in the past year in order to
see if it is contributing to their current condition. Specifically, for a patient with a recent
stroke, she reviewed his latest MRIs in order to see the progression since his last
neurological visit. Finally, she would perform a standard check up on the patient. These
were usually along the same lines as the MS checkups-- she would record the patient's
height and weight and test their balance, nerve endings, and fine motor skills.
4. How did working with your mentor affect your understanding of the topic area and / or
the professional world?
My mentor extremely increased my understanding of this topic area. After completing
my Pride Paper, I knew factual information about neurology, but not what an actual day
in the life of a doctor was like; most of the information I knew was from watching t.v.
shows and movies. After completing my mentor hours, I realized being a doctor is much
less glamorous than portrayed in the entertainment industry. Most of my mentors time
at work involved filling out paperwork or assessing the same Multiple Sclerosis patients.
Prior to shadowing my mentor, I thought that a neurologists typical day would be
studying scans of a patients brain and more one-on-one interaction with the patients,
however, I now understand that the diagnosis process for a patient is much more hands on
than digital and that most of the one-on-one interaction with the patient occur with the
nurses.
a. If your mentor was not directly related to your topic, what did you learn about the
profession that can be translated to any future professional setting?
My mentor directly related to my topic since my topic was pediatric neurology
and she is a neurologist.
b. If your mentor contributed to the development of your product, how were they
involved?
I did my product individually, my mentor did not help me with my product.
5. How did creating a product and completing the hours challenge you personally?
Creating a product and completing the mentor hours challenged me to think in a different
way. Usually whenever I solve a problem, I think of the most efficient and practical
solution, however, in working with my mentor, I realized that sometimes the easiest
solutions do not always provide the best treatment care for the patient. For example,
during my time shadowing, Dr. Schneider told a patient that getting IVs with medication
every week would alleviate most of of her Multiple Sclerosis symptoms. However, she
refused to take any form of medication so instead, Dr. Schneider had to think of
alternative options: physical therapy, more frequent checkups, etc. This challenged me to
think in more diverse ways, instead of the normal solution. As for my product, it also
challenged me to think in different ways. For a portion of my product, I created a
 pamphlet for children teaching them how to manage a circulatory disorder in the school
setting. From my research, I knew a plethora of different management techniques,
however, I had to think in a way that elementary school age children would understand.
This forced me to think in different terms than how I would normally solve a problem
and as a result, I feel that I now understand circulatory disorders much better because I
was forced to condense, summarize, and break-down the information.
6. Do you feel prepared academically and emotionally for the presentation?
I definitely feel prepared academically for the presentation. While completing the Pride
Paper, I conducted hours of research so in turn, I feel that I have gained extensive
knowledge into the field of neurology: the history, recent innovations, undergraduate
programs for neurology, etc. However, before shadowing my mentor, I did not truly
know what a life of a doctor would be like. After the completion of shadowing and my
Pride Paper, I feel more than prepared from an academic standpoint. However, I never
feel emotionally prepared until I started Public Speaking this semester. I have never been
a great public speaker, so I was worried that although I have sufficient knowledge in my
topic, I would not be able to convey this to the judges because I would be too nervous
and run under time. Once I started Public Speaking, Mr. Piatak showed us different
components that we should include in our presentations. In doing this, I definitely feel
more emotionally prepared because I realized that I have more than enough topics to
speak about; now the only thing I fear is that I will run over time during my presentation.
7. How did the entire process stretch you as a learner and as an individual?
As an individual, I definitely feel like I am a much more confident person. This entire
process forced me to go out of my comfort zone by finding and communicating with my
mentor and teaching a class. During this process, I did not have a mentor for a long
period of time because I was too afraid to email the person who I planned on shadowing
because I was afraid that my mentor would feel obligated to say yes and then I would be
impeding their work ability. Once I emailed her, I realized that it was not as big of deal
as I made it out to be and she was more than happy to help me. This simple task taught
me how to advocate for myself and communicate with others in a professional setting.
As a learner, I feel that my writing ability, especially in research papers, has greatly
improved. Before this, I had never written an essay more than 4-5 pages in length. I
have never considered myself a good writer by any means, but in writing the Pride Paper,
I know feel much more confident in writing research papers and other lengthy essays.
After learning how to use search engines such as Ebscohost, the research process became
much easier as I was able to find reliable sources and sources more specialized towards
pediatric neurology. In doing this, I now feel comfortable in writing long papers and
gathering sources.
8. Other than time management, describe an obstacle you encountered and how you
overcame it.
 My original thought for part of my Pride Project was to publish a pamphlet on DYNS
Kids website. However, since they are a small and underfunded organization, no one
ever responded to the several emails I sent in order to get my pamphlet published. In
order to solve this, I handed the pamphlets out to the students in the class I taught instead.
Since my idea for publishing the pamphlet was to reach an audience of kids, I realized
that passing it out to the students who I taught would still be reaching a desirable
audience. Also, I realized that even if I had gotten this pamphlet published, the website is
relatively unknown and is more geared towards adults than children anyways. In the end,
this method of distribution ultimately reached a wider audience and geared more towards
the age that I wanted to reach.
9. What life skills did you acquire and how will they help you in the future?
I am a naturally reserved person so public speaking has never been a strength of mine.
After teaching a lesson to a 5th Grade class, I feel that my ability to speak in front of
others has tremendously improved. Since I had to present information about the
circulatory system to 27 5th graders, I felt that there was little room for error.
Beforehand, I rehearsed what I was going to say so I felt more comfortable whenever my
presentation day actually came. Doing this, I felt much more prepared and as a result, I
feel like I have improved because I no longer stutter or mumble during presentations. In
the future, public speaking will help me because I plan to go into a career in law. I will
need this skill in order to be able to negotiate with others, speak with my clients, and if
necessary, present my case in a courtroom. Also, as a self-proclaimed procrastinator,
time management skills have definitely always been a challenge for me. During the time
writing my Pride Paper, I put off almost every deadline and ended up having to write the
entire first five pages of my paper for the five page checkpoint at 10:00 P.M. the night
before it was due. After staying up many late hours, I realized that I needed to work on
my assignments in intervals instead of all at once. This year, I have made sure to work
on my assignments over the period in which it was assigned and as a result, I feel that the
quality of my work has greatly improved. In the future this will be beneficial because in
college the assignments will be much larger and weighted heavier so if I procrastinate the
assignments, I will receive low grades. Also, if I do pursue a career in law, cases usually
take weeks to finish so learning good time management skills will allow my to complete
cases on time, put sufficient time into each of them, and do my best work on them.
10. If you had to go back and do parts of the project again, what would you do differently?
If I were to go back and do parts of the project again, I would have chosen to make just a
pamphlet instead of a booklet. The idea behind making a booklet was that I would
publish it on the DYNS Kids website, however, I did not realize until I tried to contact
them how underfunded and old their website was. I wish I would have done more
research about where I wanted to publish the booklet before I started the project. Also, I
should have made a pamphlet instead of a booklet because in reality, a child is not going
 to read a 10 to 15 page booklet about how to maintain circulatory disorders in the school
setting. Once I did condense this booklet down into a pamphlet and gave it to the class I
taught at Pine Lake, I realized I was able to reach a much larger audience. If I would
have realized this sooner, I would have wasted much less time.
11. Based on the entire Pride Project experience, do you plan to pursue this field as a career
or college area of study? If so, why? Please be specific.
After completing the Pride Project, I do not plan to pursue this field as a career, however
I do plan to still pursue a career involving science. After shadowing my mentor, I
realized that I do not want to pursue a career in healthcare or any career. I knew before I
started this project that I did not want to go into any field that involved invasive
procedures or bodily fluids, however, I thought that neurology would involve more
research and intuition than being hands-on. Upon shadowing Dr. Schneider, I quickly
came to realize that neurology involves more of a hand-on approach when assessing
patients. Now I plan to go into a field such as biomedical engineering that still involves
science, but is much more research based.