Name: Getrude Makurumidze
Class Year: 2016
Internship Placement: The Massachusetts General Hospital Division of Global Psychiatry. I will be conducting clinical research, analyzing and coding qualitative data on several studies that are being done in our division, and learning to use the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANNS), a medical scale used to measure the severity of schizophrenia symptoms in patients. I will be involved in grant and manuscript preparation, and will also perform administrative support duties.
What’s happening? We’d love to hear how your internship is going:
My internship at the Massachusetts General Hospital Division of Global Psychiatry has been going really well. I have learned many practical and useful skills in the area of healthcare from phlebotomy to measuring vital signs and taking an ECG. I am part of a team that conducts clinical research in schizophrenia, work with other institutions abroad to built capacity in mental health and promote mental health awareness and interventions in other countries. I interact with patients that visit our clinic and are on study drugs, and measure and record vital signs to monitor their health. Through these interactions, I get to talk and get to know patients on a one-to-one basis. I have also learned to code quantitative data, search for grants, conduct literature reviews, and participate in research protocols. I am involved in a clinical trial and I observe medical assessments and also perform data entry for patients on test drug or placebo.
Measuring my colleague’s blood pressure.
How I heard about my internship:
I learned about this internship after my mentor introduced me to a psychiatrist who is involved in the Global Psychiatry Division at MGH.
Why I applied for my internship:
While working on a chapter for the second edition of a textbook on AIDS Psychiatry, I developed a strong passion for mental health and following my internship in Integrative Medicine, I learnt a lot about using a biopsychosocial approach to medicine. I realized that mental health is widely neglected in many countries, including my very own (Zimbabwe) and I wanted to learn more about the field of mental health in preparation for my future work as a physician.