From meat inspection to cancer prevention, summer practicums offer variety of experience
By Julie Johnston
During Summer 2007 MPH students spread out across the United States and around the world to hone their skills and interests as they prepared to become the next generation of public health practitioners.
Michika Nickerson is a student in the MPH Program for Experienced Professionals (PEP). She has found that her summer practicum with the non-profit organization Road of Life: Cancer Prevention for Kids has been an excellent way to put her health behavior and health promotion background to use.
“The practicums give students a better sense of the tremendous skills and knowledge they pick up from their MPH program, and it gives them a first chance to see how those skills have practical applications in their careers,” said Lori Bolton, CPH’s assistant director of practice education and career services.
Road of Life, based in Columbus, focuses on educating children in areas of nutrition, fitness and tobacco use prevention in order to reduce their risk of developing cancer. Working with fellow MPH students Keeley Zakrzewski and Sarah Krygowski, Nickerson developed a workbook designed to help parents and caregivers teach the Road of Life Curriculum to their children. The three also completed a health career handbook designed for elementary students.
“I think these experiences have really prepared me,” Nickerson said. “Someday I want to direct a community health center and promote the healthy values that we focus on at Road of Life.”
Hayley Ashbaugh traveled halfway around the world this summer for her practicum at the National Institute of Veterinary Research (NIVR) in Hanoi, Vietnam. An MPH student who is specializing in veterinary public health, Ashbaugh is conducting milk hygiene surveys with rural Vietnamese dairy farmers and performing lab work on samples collected from the farms.
“I thought this setup would allow me to get a glimpse of the variety of work that goes on in the department I am working in,” Ashbaugh said.
Ashbaugh, who previously spent a year teaching English in Vietnam, says her work with NIVR, which is the main veterinary research institution in Vietnam, may be very helpful if she decides to continue working in Vietnam after graduation.
The practicum gives students a real world experience, but even more, it gives them the opportunity to network,” Bolton said. “So many of our students find very rewarding careers after graduation, and this ability to network during practicums is key to finding a great position.”
Ashbaugh said she has already applied information she learned in her food safety, zoonotic disease classes, and her epidemiology and biostatistics knowledge has helped her with data collection and analysis.
“As far as food safety goes, though, I am not only needing to apply the skills I learned from class, but also find how best to transfer the knowledge of what should occur in the U.S. dairy industry to how milk can be kept safe in the context of rural Vietnam,” she said.
