Journal Week 7

Elizabeth Kiger

KINS 4306: Public Health Internship

Georgia College & State University

 On Monday, 6/21/21, I worked from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (8 hours). On this day I worked on

calling on the discharged patients from Friday-Sunday. There were many people on my lists

from the weekend so working on this took me all day. I first sorted the lists and then began

calling the patients. The patients today had a lot more issues that needed to be resolved than last

week. I usually wait to give the paper that has all the questions that I could not help patients with

to my supervisor instead of once I finished all the calls for the day. I decided to give my paper

with notes to my supervisor earlier because there was a very disgruntled patient that needed

assistance quickly. I then continued to call people and then gave my supervisor another sheet of

notes with questions or issues she would later assist me with.

On Tuesday, 6/22/21, I worked from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (8 hours). I spoke with my

supervisor this morning who told me that she wanted me to create a presentation that summed up

the notes from all my discharge calls as well as calculate some numbers such as how many calls

I’ve made. As I was reviewing my notes, I noticed that I had never received the call list from

6/17. I then asked my supervisor to send that list to me and then I called them all. After I

completed those calls, I continued to review my discharge call notes and then began working on

my presentation. I created a PowerPoint presentation that had a summary of the common

complaints I received.

On Wednesday, 6/23/21, I worked from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (8 hours). I began my day by

continuing to work on my presentation and calculated some numbers based on my notes. I

counted the total number of calls I have made as well as how many of them were answered or if I

left a voicemail. I then reviewed the patients’ comments and I categorized them into positive,

negative, or mixed. I then calculated the total in each of these categories and then put them into

percentages. I did this to make it easier to get a quick understanding of the type of comments I
receive. I plan to present this PowerPoint at an upcoming pep rally for the hospital. I plan to do it

at this time because it will allow me to share my findings with those who are dealing with the

patients. I will be able to tell the nursing staff as well as the techs some things that they could

improve or stop doing that will make the patients happier. I was then given items that were left

at the hospital from patients and found their addresses and then mailed them back to them. After

that I attended a meeting with the Pain Committee to discuss the Pain Conference in the fall. I

discussed with them the research I had found and gave them some ideas about topics they would

like to cover at their conference. After the meeting I then went through the lists of the topics in

my notes and wrote all the speakers names down. I then sent the notes to the conference

committee so that they could read over the topics as well as look up speakers they may want to

attend the conference.

On Thursday, 6/24/21, I worked from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (8 hours). On this day I spent the

whole day working on discharge calls. There were a lot of complaints, so it took me a while to

make my calls. This caused me to not finish all my calls, so I plan to continue working on them

tomorrow as well.

On Friday, 6/25/21, I worked from 8 a.m. - 4 p.m. (8 hours). On this day I again spent it

working on discharge calls throughout the whole day. It was interesting to notice how many

more patient complaints I had to deal with this week compared to last week. I am not sure if

there is a reason for the shift in number of patient complaints or not, but I plan to pay attention to

the future weeks and look for any trends. I enjoyed the work I did this week and I felt very

productive. I really enjoyed attending the meeting with the Pain Committee because I was

looking forward to this meeting when it was first planned at the beginning of June. I was able to

share my research more in depth than last time and those in the pain committee were all very
interested in hearing what I had to say. I felt like I made a helpful contribution to the planning. I

was also assigned some tasks to complete to help plan for this conference which I am looking

forward to completing. The one I am most excited for is filming videos of people sharing their

own experience dealing with different types of pain. We plan to share these videos during the

conference to help those attending the conference see from someone in pain’s perspective and

allow them to see some real-life situations.

Monday (6/7/2021): 8: 00 am - 4:00pm; 8 hours

Tuesday (6/8/2021): 8: 00 am - 4:00pm; 8 hours
Wednesday (6/9/2021): 8: 00 am - 4:00pm; 8 hours
Thursday (6/10/2021): 8:00 am - 4:00pm; 8 hours
Friday (6/11/2021): 8:00 am -4:00pm; 8 hours
Weekly Hours: 40
Total Hours to date: 272