Abraham Kiesel ’20 — As an intern for the Indiana Rural Health Association, my first major project this summer was to convert physical screening tools to online tools using RedCap, which is a little more advanced version of SurveyMonkey. The screening tools will be used by Perinatal Navigators of IRHA partnering organizations to collect data about women’s pregnancy history as part of the Healthy Start Initiative. I worked closely with a staff member and was able to teach her more efficient ways of creating screening tools in RedCap. Together, we accomplished about two weeks of work in less than five days. I have also assisted my supervisor Dr. Amnah Anwar with various tasks, including finalizing two grant reports necessary to continue receiving funding for her projects.
One of her projects funded through grants is the Indiana Rural Opioid Consortium (InROC). At the annual IRHA conference, Dr. Anwar, a fellow intern, and I presented about InROC at our booth. We provided information to health professionals and students. A unique feature of our exhibit was a mock teenager’s bedroom; it contained 13 hidden fake drugs. We had a challenge in which participants searched the room to find as many drugs as they could in 45 seconds. Most participants found only a couple, and this alarmed them. It became a great conversation starter for them to learn more about substance abuse disorder.
In the future, I look forward to additional presentations regarding our mock teen bedroom that we will be bringing to a few hospitals. I am also eager to shadow administrators of Gibson General Hospital–my county’s hospital–to learn more about the administrative side of healthcare. I would like to thank the Global Health Initiative for this opportunity.
