Hannah Graff
In the next installment of our summer intern series, we hear about the “day in the life” of one of our interns.
Hello! I am a medical student by background at Kings College London and I am currently completing my intercalated MSc in Global Health Policy at the London School of Economics. I have been thoroughly enjoying my time with HealthLumen and working with all the staff who are extremely friendly and supportive. My interests lie in health policy and economics, with a particular interest in evidence review and synthesis for decision making. I am currently working on two projects for HealthLumen:
1) exploring the indirect costs of Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and
2) the value of early screening and detection of CKD
Instead of going on about the intricacies of these project, I thought it would be more insightful to capture what a typical day as an intern looks like:
Morning
I open up my laptop and check all my emails to see if there are any updates from the team. I then usually have a meeting with my supervisor and other interns who I may be working with to see what work needs to be done and when – we update each other too on the progress of our work. For example, I am working with another intern on the CKD screening project and we are currently running a literature search for relevant studies for this topic. We share ideas and refine the search strategy until things are agreed. We develop an action plan as well to understand what needs to be done by when. An amazing thing about working at HealthLumen is how flexible, encouraging and incredibly kind everyone is! It’s a great working environment to be a part of.
Early Afternoon
This is the part of the day where I can just get on with work and the completion of tasks, it is a very independent part of the day really. I try to do most of my work in this time (unless I have no meetings in the morning). Typical work in this time consists of any readings I need to do, note-taking, amendments to any bodies of work we are writing or creating, and modifying presentations depending on the clients we are completing work for. I take a small break during this time to pray as well as grab some food from the kitchen!
Late Afternoon/Evening
As the day nears an end, it’s important to check that I am up to date with all my work. If I did not complete anything through out the day, I really do try not to log off until it’s done. I usually have a catch up with my intern colleagues that I am sharing project work with, so it’s really nice to touch base about the things we have done during the day as well as discuss any other concerns or difficulties we’ve encountered. When I log off, I reward myself with a 5K run (not that rewarding, I know!) or I usually have football in the evenings. It’s nice to get off my desk, breathe some fresh air, and get my heart going.