The past couple of years has taught me that I can never really grasp the concept of time. While it seemed, the world stood still because of the pandemic, my work life and home life was never busier. When I hear people speak of how hard it was to have many of the opportunities for diversional activities stopped because of COVID.
I can’t relate at all as time seems to be moving exponentially for me.
This brings me to a reflection on my learning journey over the summer. It seems like it just began, I feel it needs to continue, I have been reading, finding new knowledge on theories for public health that I was not aware of, or learned so long ago I had forgotten them. The course content this summer let me think of a topic and design an approach to help improve the health of people in my community. That sparked a creativity in me that I have not had in a while. I would find myself lost in reading and forgetting I had to post something, or even comment on others, as I wanted to find out more about the theory that influences our public health system. Coming from an acute care world, often the public health stream is arm’s length away and while I have full respect for that line of business, I was not always aware of the rationale for decisions made in that program. My summer course has opened my eyes and ignited a desire to spend more time connecting with this part of health care and work to connect the acute world to the public health world. So many things have influence over public health, as I reflect on the myths that exist and how quickly people use social media for their health knowledge has now made me cringe when I see some of the ads on my own person social media accounts. I feel the need to refute and challenge those influences that are impacting the health of our people. My eyes will never look at some of the paid scientific advertisements without wanting to look to the research for myself.
My personal growth and insight was further deepened with understanding my privileges in the world, not that I earned them in any way, but my self-awareness has grown to a new level. Furthermore, the awareness and sensitivity has been stirred in me to see places where I can level the field and ensure that there are no bias’s present.
I have also learned that I am not tech savvy and struggled with the new ways to display work this semester. Making videos, pictographs, and other wonderful visually appealing things are not tools in my wheelhouse, but I am now more aware of them and will work to improve my ability to be as polished as my peers who know these tools far better than me.
My learning journey continues but I am grateful for this learning experience, I have personally and professional grown over this summer, and will take the knowledge with me in my day to day work.
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