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During my internship with Brown Health this past summer, I had the opportunity to broaden my clinical, research, and collaborative skills. I had the privilege to work alongside clinical neuropsychologists who specialize in evaluating the relationship between the brain and human behavior. In doing so, they assess how diseases, injuries, and nervous system disorders impact cognition, emotions, and behavioral functioning. Having the opportunity to observe patient-clinician interactions, how cognitive batteries are administered, and how diagnostic rationales are formed was an excellent learning experience. As an aspiring clinician myself, I found these experiences further affirmed my career path choices.
Additionally, while I was able to shadow a fair amount, my internship mainly consisted of conducting clinically based research. As I mentioned before, clinical neuropsychologists specialize in specific patient care, but they also contribute heavily to research pertaining to the field of neuroscience. Hence, I was mainly tasked with building, managing, and extracting data from a dataset of probable idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) individuals. iNPH is characterized by its clinical triad, which includes urinary incontinence, gait apraxia, and mild dementia. However, many of the symptoms blend in with several other common pathologies, including Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Due to this, diagnosing iNPH and treating it can be difficult. Therefore, the research I was conducting looked to improve diagnostic candidacy through cognitive indicators. In other words, increasing diagnostic accuracy by analyzing more predictive variables.
In sum, this internship opportunity has provided me with valuable skills such as clinical experience, reading medical notes and primary literature, collaboration, conducting clinically relevant research, and publishing research into a full written manuscript. As I enter my senior year of college, I will look to employ these skills this year as well as in my journey in pursuit of a health-related career.