Hosting two interns!
The hosting of two undergraduate interns - a remote experiment during COVID-19!
10KFS welcomed two interns from the Health Disparities and Cancer Research Summer Internship into our midst over the summer of 2020. This is a joint program between the University of Minnesota Medical School Program in Health Disparities Research and the Masonic Cancer Center. The program is a paid, full-time internship designed to give undergraduate students from Minnesota's racial/ethnic minority and underrepresented communities experience conducting cancer and/or health disparities research. All interns take part in group educational activities and are assigned to a mentor or research group who support them in developing their own research project and poster - a concise information summary about the research project, which they present at the end of the 8-week program. The program’s goals fit well with 10KFS’ focus on building an inclusive cohort for our research study that includes cancer, among other health issues. This is the second time we have hosted an intern in the program. Last summer we hosted an intern, and this year we took the leap of faith to request an intern in the new virtual format, due to COVID-19, and were blessed with two!
From the Frogtown/Rondo neighborhood and then the East side of St Paul, Nongnut Thao is a rising junior at St Olaf College, where she is majoring in Biology. Nongnut was born in a refugee camp in Thailand and immigrated to the US as a small child. Growing-up, the extracurricular activities that attracted her weren’t sports or music but rather community-based volunteering, sometimes with new Americans whose experience reminded her of her own.
From Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, Menal Abdella is a rising sophomore at Macalester College, where she is majoring in chemistry and minoring in Arabic. Menal comes from a family of Oromo immigrants, though she herself was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Having grown-up in Minnesota, she remains quite active in the local Oromo community and moves with ease between it and the broader Twin Cities community.
Both Menal and Nongnut are first-generation college students and have been involved in a variety of academic and community pursuits. They’ve both been gaining strong professional and leadership experience and contributing to the community, from Nongnut tutoring middle-schoolers and packing food for foodshelves, to Menal working as an EMT and serving on the Macalester Muslim Student Association. Both pre-med, they were attracted to the multifaceted internship program, which focuses on health disparities, cancer, and research--a unique combination.
This summer at 10KFS
Nongnut and Menal came to us in early June, excited about this new project but concerned about the digital format. After they had some conversations with Dr. DeAnn Lazovich, the assigned investigator from our team to mentor them, Nongnut and Menal chose to adapt an existing survey of cancer beliefs and preventive and screening practices and attitudes toward health research to administer to the Hmong and Oromo communities, respectively, in the Twin Cities.
With the support of 10KFS, they were able to get the approval from the Institutional Research Board (IRB) to do research that involved recruiting adults through online media to take their surveys. They used their own community connections, which bore fruit. They both were well-received when inviting people to take the online survey, easily surpassing their goal of 30 survey participants each in the course of a few days! Their findings and comparisons to the largely white, US-born population previously surveyed were very useful for learning about lifestyle, risk and protective factors, access to screening, and beliefs and attitudes related to cancer and research participation. Creating and presenting research posters about their surveys not only provided Menal and Nongnut a valuable learning experience and satisfied program expectations but will be an ongoing resource for them to present elsewhere. For 10KFS, in turn, the interns’ findings, community contacts, and other recommendations they shared will help guide 10KFS outreach to the Hmong and Oromo communities going forward. Click here to see the posters created: Hmong community poster & Oromo community poster.
- What was your favorite part of the internship?
Nongnut: Not just one thing. Every aspect contributes to my learning. I really liked the seminars and how broad the topics were, from how to be a resilient scientist to applying to med school to learning more about different communities and how to write abstracts. I also liked working with 10KFS; it was very special to me.
Menal: I liked everything, too. Even things I thought would be boring, like basic cancer info. When I came to 10KFS meetings, I felt like a real researcher. I also got to learn more about my community and felt like I helped, which was really rewarding. It has gone beyond my expectations.
- Were there any surprises in the internship?
Nongnut: I was surprised by how well the virtual internship worked out. We learned so much from it.
Menal: I was pleasantly surprised by how people in my community responded and came together for my survey. It was important that I was Oromo, even though they didn’t know me. They were excited to get representation--it was very powerful.
- How has the internship impacted your plans for the rest of college and even your career?
Nongnut: When I first came to college, I thought I wanted to do everything. I’m now more interested in health disparities and underrepresented communities, which the internship taught me so much about. It’s made me want to continue to learn more.
Menal: As a first-generation college student, I didn’t know research at all. This was an amazing, wonderful opportunity. I still want to go to medical school and want to take a break first--and now I would be interested in using it to do research.
- What are your top recommendations for 10KFS in approaching and reaching your community?
Nongnut: 10KFS is going in the right direction with the Community Advisory Board--having input from community members and organizations about how to reach their community better...I think it takes collaboration from the academic investigators and the community advisors to make it work.
Menal: I highly recommend going to community leaders and using their strengths and working as a team. Everyone benefits from this study.
For more information about how to partner with 10KFS visit: How to become a 10KFS partner
More about the author:
Andrea Hickle - 10,000 Families Study Coordinator
