When I first started my internship, my goals were to improve my Spanish speaking and translating skills, networking abilities, and leadership skills. About halfway through my internship, there was a major shift in duties. I started working more closely with Jeff Pfingsten and Jessica Ardery, who are in charge of marketing and event organizing. This shift lead me to do less translating for the clinic as I was working more with administration. Every once in a while I would get asked to translate if it was really busy, but not nearly as much as I was in the beginning. My Spanish improved slightly, as I picked up on medical terms and learned how translate a bit more effectively. Despite this, my written Spanish has noticeably improved. Genesis Family Health (GFH) has a mostly Hispanic population so a lot of marketing has to be translated in Spanish. I was able to help with this, and whenever I was in doubt, Leslie was there to proofread and correct any of my mistakes.
I’ve also gotten a lot better at networking. As part of my new duties revolving around marketing, I had to establish connections with newspapers in the surrounding area. I contacted the Dodge City Daily Globe, Garden City Telegram, and Liberal’s Leader and Times. I was also tasked with interviewing several of our health providers for a newspaper ad. Cold calling and emailing is something that I’ve always dreaded. These past few months have made this task much easier to do. I don’t come off as nervous or unsure as I used to.
The final ability I set out to work on was my leadership skills. I’ll admit, this one I’m still having trouble with. The world of non-profit health clinics and marketing for them is new territory for me. I’m still learning a lot about how exactly Genesis operates within the grander ecosystem of nonprofits within each community. Jeff and Jessica have both been very helpful in showing me the mechanisms. I do try and make pushes in minor ways. For National Health Center Week, I suggested we hold a coloring contest and provide coloring pages for children at each clinic. I was then tasked with curating superhero coloring sheets, editing them in Publisher to add a space for name and phone number, and sending them out to all the receptionists in Garden City, Dodge City, Ulysses, and Liberal.
Overall, I would say that my experience as an intern here with Genesis has been fantastic. I’ve run into some obstacles, like learning how to work with graphic design programs to make logos and graphics for ads, but I overcame them with the help of everyone in the office. This Friday, we will be providing free wellness screenings at each of our sites, open to everyone in the community. GFH does a lot for the local communities they’re established in and they have a great mission. I am grateful that I got to help compose messages that conveyed their mission to people.
