What Research Taught Me About Health Care

This summer, I worked as an intern in a research lab at Oregon Health & Science University, where I contributed to an ongoing research project examining the barriers families face when accessing care for their child or children living with autism. I sought out an internship at Oregon Health & Science University because of how well the experience aligns with my academic and career goals. I am studying Brain, Behavior, & Cognition with the intention of pursuing nursing, and this internship gave me the opportunity to explore healthcare, which I had no prior experience with. I was drawn to this particular organization because of how local it is to my hometown, which allowed me to give back to my own community while learning more about the healthcare issues affecting families in Oregon.  

Through this internship, I hoped to learn more about how research is conducted and, more importantly, how research can help identify the exact barriers families face when trying to access care. It is one thing to learn about barriers to health care through academic research, but it is another to hear directly from people whose experiences could help researchers better understand those barriers and how to best navigate them. Speaking with participants made the research feel much more personal and reminded me that behind every survey response is a person and a family with their own experiences.  

No two days at the lab looked exactly the same. Some days started with a one-on-one check-in with my supervisor, while others included meetings with the lab team as a whole. I also attended weekly workshops intended to help all interns learn how to best utilize their internship experience after leaving the organization. A large part of my role involved reaching out to research participants over the phone, explaining the study, gauging interest, and sometimes even walking them through each of the survey questions. Although making calls felt extremely intimidating at first, I became much more comfortable communicating with participants as time went on and I learned how important patience and clear communication are when working with participants.  

I also worked with other interns and research assistants to prepare and send out mass waves of surveys to participants through the mail. On the less glamorous, but equally as important, side of research, I spent a lot of time entering participant information and survey responses into a database so the research team could use the data for further analysis. This required attention to detail and consistency, because even the smallest mistake can affect the quality of the information researchers rely on later. Through this work, I gained practical experience with how information moves from an individual participant’s experience into a larger research dataset.

This experience has shown me that healthcare is much bigger than what happens in a hospital or clinic. It’s also taught me that meaningful change does not always happen immediately.  Sometimes, it begins with the careful collection of information, listening to people’s experiences intently, and making sure those experiences are accurately represented in the research. If I could give one piece of advice to students looking for an internship or career experience, it would be to take advantage of the resources the Career and Community Engagement Center provides, apply for the Whitman Internship Grant and don’t underestimate the value of experiences that may seem small at first.

Brianna Garcia-Andrade ’27 (she/her) is a Brain, Behavior & Cognition major from Cornelius, Oregon. She was an intern at Oregon Health & Science University for the summer and is looking forward to analyzing the data collected for her senior thesis.