STUDENT SPOTLIGHT

This summer, Emily Casiano completed the Leadership Initiatives Advances Medical & Public Health Internship in Washington, D.C.

How did you learn about the Leadership Initiatives Program at Georgetown? What was the application process like?

In October 2022, I received a text message from a friend I went to middle school with. We are still very close, and she wanted to let me know about the internship. I told her I was interested, and a day later I received an email from Marshall Bailey, the founder of Leadership Initiatives. Little did I know that this email would change my life! Leadership Initiatives has many programs, but the one that caught my attention was the Advanced Medical & Public Health Internship. As soon as my parents got home, I told them about it. They thought it was a great opportunity, so I applied. To apply I needed to write multiple essays about myself, submit a headshot, and share a few pictures that showcase my life. There were limited spots, but with the help of my friend's recommendation, I was accepted!

How has your education at Cathedral prepared you to pursue and participate in the program?

During my freshman and sophomore years, I took health with Ms. Colon and Ms. Myrie. They prepared me for the internship. Not only was I familiar with medical vocabulary, but our lessons on how to treat a patient helped me with diagnoses as part of the internship. Our Travel Club trip to Italy also helped me get used to rooming with people and being away from family.

Did you live in DC for the duration of the program? What was your daily schedule like?

Yes, I lived in the Georgetown University dorms with my roommate. We had a fun yet strict schedule. We woke up early and went to bed late. Each day we would wake up, drink coffee, grab a snack for lectures, have lunch, got to more lectures, do group work, have dinner, explore Georgetown (we would go out into the neighborhood and explore with the team leads), and finally return to our dorm to sleep! It was a challenging internship, and we had lectures all day on Mondays and Tuesdays. This was tiring, but all the speakers were super interesting. We worked with Nigerian doctors like Dr. Aisha Garba, who gave us insight into what it is really like in Nigeria. This helped my team and I come up with ideas for our workshops. Wednesday was one of my favorite days. Wednesday was a day when we learned how to suture, do CPR, dissect a heart, intubate, draw blood, and take patients' vitals. I will never forget the smell of the heart or how it felt to see the lungs on the dummy inflate when I intubated it. At the end of the week, we presented our project ideas and diagnosed our patient.

Did it spark any interests or passions of yours?

Yes, I went into this internship thinking about being a Radiology technologist, but after this internship my interests have widened. Not only do I have more confidence in myself, but I have more certainty that I want to work in the medical field. I still have a big interest in radiology, but through this internship I have learned about all of the different choices in the medical field. I love helping people, and this internship provided me with more opportunities than I could have ever expected or asked for.

You mentioned that you created a book to help mothers and children learn about the diagnosis and treatment process of typhoid. Can you tell us more about this?

Through the internship, I and a few others participated in a workshop, through which we created several resources. My team worked on many educational elements, like a bowling game they called “Typhoid Termination,” which matched disease with treatment. At the same time, I worked on text and images for a book I called “Stories of Sade.” I had the idea for this book after learning about the poor education system that exists within Nigeria. Picture books with small sentences can be easy for kids to understand.

I worked hard to make sure that the characters' appearance and names were Nigerian. The book starts at the hospital where Sade and her mom are. Using Cami, I created an appealing background and text to influence children to read it. I am extremely happy with the outcome of this book. The judges ended up loving it, and my team was extremely happy and proud of me for completing it. I still miss the people in my team whom I met during the internship. We were from all over the United States and had different unique ideas. I am extremely grateful to have worked with them.

Anything else that you’d like to share about the project?

I would like to just say how important it is to help people. Giving back to the world is such an amazing feeling. Opportunities come and go, and you will never know which ones will change your life. If I never took the opportunity of this internship, going to Cathedral High School, or traveling to Italy, I wouldn't be the same person I am today. This project has been a great opportunity to provide better care and education to Nigeria and its people, and I will forever appreciate it.