How did you become or decide to become a site liaison for your rotation site?
I wanted to become a site liaison in order to help our group of students navigate through our first year of clerkships. This year was unlike anything that we experienced before, and through the liaison position, I wanted to develop a good line of communication between the school and our student group to make the experience as enjoyable as it could be.
What was your favorite aspect of being a liaison?
I enjoyed helping to organize group events for the students at our site.
What did you find most challenging about your role?
We would often help schedule speakers for our medical student lecture series that was held weekly at our site. It was at times difficult to coordinate physician availability with our schedules and to find enough speakers for a particular day.
How did you foster community at your rotation site?
We organized two main group events while in Springfield. Our first was a Holiday party that included a gift exchange and our second event was a group bowling outing.
In what ways (if any) did leadership positions in COM Clubs and Orgs translate to your 3rd year leadership positions?
I was the secretary for SOMA and would summarize meetings and distribute important information to club members. Gathering and organizing important information and communicating it to everyone at our site required alot of the same organization and communication skills.
What are some of the leadership qualities and skill-sets you find most useful as site liaisons?
The ability to summarize and communicate important information to others as well as having the ability to listen to student concerns so that the appropriate people can be made aware of and address the concern.
Describe your experience working with Dr. Maria Hill.
Dr. Hill was a wonderful attending physician that all students had the pleasure of working with. When our site coordinator left early in the year, Dr. Hill was the one who stepped up to fill that role on top of her busy schedule. She was the Pediatric Clerkship director and was an amazing preceptor that took the time to teach us all important concepts regarding pediatrics. She was a great advocate for students and made sure that we all had the opportunities for hands on experience. She acted as a mentor for many students and additionally helped me and Danielle organize our research project on Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome.
Tell me about the research you did with Dr. Hill and your experience presenting your research posters at PN QIN.
Dr. Hill provided us with the opportunity to get involved with clinical research involving the treatment of Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome at Mercy Medical Center's Family Life Center. We performed a retrospective chart review where we looked at the rates of pharmacological and non-pharmacological treatment and whether there was any association with the number of non-pharmacological treatments performed and the need to start medication for withdrawal. She was a great mentor that she gave us a lot of freedom to develop our own hypothesis and methods. She additionally helped us organize our results into a concise poster presentation, and, with her guidance, our project was selected to be one of two research projects that was given a time slot for an oral presentation in front of all conference attendees. It was a great learning experience and it was exciting to see how interested people were in our project and how it would help them direct the care of infants with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome at their health care facilities.
What are you most looking forward to in your 4th year?
I am most excited to have the opportunity to rotate through specialties that I am most interested in. I will be rotating at programs all over the country and I am excited to see which programs I like the best and which ones I would like to end up at for residency.
ELISE REDDINGTON, MS, COM ’20, ON HER LEADERSHIP ROLE AS A SITE LIAISON
"With [Dr. Hill's] guidance, our project was selected to be one of two research projects that was given a time slot for an oral presentation in front of all conference attendees."