Medical and Health Sciences Foundation, 12/09
by Marlee Gallagher

Senior Cara Lyle is a unique PPW intern. Being a Biology major, Chemistry minor, and Conceptual Foundations of Medicine Certificate candidate, Cara managed to fit the PPW certificate classes into her schedule as well. In addition to school, Cara is a lab assistant for the Transplant Pathology department of UPMC Montefiore, and her internship this term was with the prestigious Medical and Health Sciences Foundation.

At her internship, Cara worked in the Corporate and Foundations Relations Office. She found this internship by searching the PPW internship website. She explained, “The internship was appealing to me because it was related to medicine and science while offering an opportunity to improve and enhance my professional writing.” Cara said that some of her main duties at her site included, “writing for a Stewardship project, a Faces of Scholarship campaign, an ARCS Scholar student profile, and a Scholars and Stewards article for the Pitt Chronicle.” She said that she also did a lot of “proofreading, emailing and contacting students or clinicians, and attending various meetings.” She said that almost all of this work was done in the office, but she did do some work at home.

In the future, Cara wants to be a physician. She said that her internship experience will be a great help to her future career because, as she explained, “I think it is especially important for physicians to communicate well in both spoken and written language.” She continued, “Unfortunately, many physicians do not understand how to converse with patients in a way that enables the patients to fully understand the science.” For her Stewardship project, she said she “had to take science heavy information and put it into common language,” which is something that she believes will help her communication as a physician. Cara also expressed that writing is an important life skill, no matter your career.

One downside to Cara’s internship was the cubicle. “That was pretty mundane,” she said, “However, while my environment was steady, my writing projects were always changing, which kept me very interested.”

Cara said she would definitely recommend this internship to future students. She explained, “The number one reason I would recommend my internship site to other students is that I think that the office has an expert staff that really could help a student improve their writing skills.” She added, “They are a great resource for any interested writer.” As for PPW courses, Cara recommends Grant and Proposal Writing. She explained that, “graduating with a written grant in your portfolio makes you a much more competitive job candidate.” And for science majors specifically, Cara said that, “grants and knowing where to get funding is essential to obtaining research funds.”

As Cara continues on to medical school next fall, she hopes to continue her unique set of interests. When she was a child, she wanted to be a lot of different things, “anything from a dance instructor to a basketball player to a business woman,” and she wants to always be able to pursue other directions related to her career. She explained that in the medical field, even after she has her MD degree, she will still have “the opportunity and choice to teach, research, [or] focus on community related education programs” if she wants. She continued, “I like being able to delve into other areas.” While Cara may not use her MD degree to become a dance instructor or basketball player, she will certainly use her skills in both science and writing to improve the relationship between patient and physician. This is certainly a worthwhile goal that her internship and PPW courses have helped her to create.