My internship at the Mayo Graduate School has proven to be one of the most rewarding and enriching experiences during my time as a student at Luther College. So far, it has perfectly combined both aspects of my Biology and Global Health majors. The work that I am involved in includes community-based participatory research (CBPR) mainly through message creation and dissemination around the COVID-19 vaccine in underserved communities. As of late, the work has included vaccine distribution with an opportunity for fieldwork through pop-up vaccination clinics through providers from Mayo Clinic.


On a daily basis, I engage with my internship supervisors and other co-workers who work under their guidance full-time. My supervisors are both internists at Mayo Clinic who spearhead all the current research projects and activities through the Rochester Healthy Community Partnership. The RHCP is a community-academic partnership with the mission to promote health and well-being through CBPR, education and civic engagement to achieve health equity.  Since all of the work that I am engaged in involves underserved communities, I have had a unique opportunity to engage with immigrant and minority populations in Rochester, often with health disparities. These engagements are mostly through communication partners from groups such as the Somali, Ethopian, Cambodian, Hispanic and Latinx communities. So far I have learned how much the research has sought to improve the health of these groups by developing, implementing, and assessing socio-culturally and linguistically appropriate interventions.


Furthermore, my background in organizing community events and outreach were helpful in contributing to the vaccination efforts. Recently, I was able to change their intake forms from a paper-based format to an electronic format. This upgrade allowed my supervisors and colleagues to be able to see real-time changes and statistics to data being collected which they were not yet able to do. Other than that, past courses in biology such as Human Physiology, Biostatistics and Molecular Biology have come to play a big role in my internship work. Since a lot of our community partners do not have backgrounds in biology, at times I am given opportunities to explain things like what mRNA vaccines mean, how they work in the body, and how side effects from the vaccine develop. The physicians that I work with often task me with finding material in concordance with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Mayo Clinic and the Minnesota Department of Health for reference. In addition, my Global Health courses thus far have also provided a good foundation and have helped me prepare for the type of engagements that I participate in now with physicians, medical students, research coordinators and community partners alike.


My internship provides ample opportunities to not only engage with these communities but be able to identify the health disparities that affect each group uniquely. What I appreciate the most about my supervisors and colleagues is their attention to detail and sensitivity to the way particular factors of the research affect different aspects of these communities such as their religion and cultural norms. I believe their awareness and consideration makes it easier for the community to identify them as allies in the effort to create health equity. This is especially demonstrated in them always thanking the community partners for their work as liaisons and leaders at the end of each meeting. It is especially encouraging to see how the “professionals” see the value of engaging with these partners, because without them, none of this important work would be made possible. Currently, I am very excited about the new changes in vaccine eligibility that has happened. The abrupt change in eligibility has caused a lot of the work we had planned for the next few weeks to speed up and I am finding out more that I work well under pressure and fast-paced environments. This experience is definitely giving me a glimpse into what a real-life career in Biology and Global Health could look like.