UVM Career Center Blog

By: Maddie Panyard ’21

We have amazing students at the University of Vermont who get involved in wonderful organizations. This week, we’d like to introduce you to Sydney Caldwell, a junior molecular genetics major with a Spanish minor.  She is passionate about the research and clubs she has found at UVM.

Career Interests: 

Sydney has always been interested in the world of medicine. In the past, she has toyed with whether to pursue a PhD, MD, or combined MD/PhD degree. With over 6 years of research experience, a PhD may seem liked the logical choice, but after doing clinical shadowing, Sydney realized that she loves patient interactions. Regardless of whether she goes on to obtain an MD or MD/PhD,  she wants a career in which she an care for patients while also continuing research of her own. Sydney plans to wait a year after graduating UVM to apply to medical school but is hoping that during that year off she can spend time in a Spanish speaking country to continue to improve her ability to communicate in Spanish. 

Her Research Experience: 

Sydney started doing cancer research in high school at Stony Brook University near her home on Long Island, and also was able to spend a short period of time doing research at UC Davis. Her research involved the study of the spice, turmeric, specifically a component known as curcumin, as a potential therapeutic for cancer.  

Once at UVM, Sydney did not let her passion for research die. She met with her advisor during the first month of school and found out about a professor that was doing immunology research. Using her advisor’s connection, she sent out an email to the professor expressing her interest in his lab. The professor responded, and she met with him in person to discuss her passion for research. By October, she was actively involved in the professor’s research lab learning all about immunology and obesity. As a junior, she is still working in this research lab, spending approximately 9-10 hours a week there doing experiments that focus on the effects of a long non-coding RNA in immune cells and obesity. 

MedVida: 

Sydney is co-president of UVM’s club MedVida. MedVida is UVM’s chapter of the national organization MEDLIFE. MEDLIFE is a non-profit organization that seeks to provide medicine, education, and development to people living in rural areas of Ecuador, Peru, Nicaragua, and Tanzania where access to care is extremely limited. Students involved in MEDLIFE help provide short term relief during one to two weeklong trips by setting up health clinics in rural villages.  

In May of 2019, Sydney and other club members traveled to Peru to assist doctors for 10 days. Sydney appreciated the opportunity to learn firsthand about the importance of public health while interacting with others from a cultural experience different from her own.  Generally, the Peru trip happens every year. However, with COVID this fall, MedVida is holding a virtual trip in December. This virtual trip will occur over a week and feature interviews with patients and doctors. Throughout the week, there will be a mix of live and pre-recorded sessions.   

Interested in getting involved in MedVida? 

MedVida is still holding weekly in-person meetings, despite COVID. The meetings happen every Tuesday at 6 pm. To get more information, send an email to one of the co-Presidents (Samantha.Beaudette@uvm.edu and Sydney.Caldwell@uvm.edu)  Other Involvement: 

Sydney is an active member in the UVM and Burlington community. Besides MedVida, she also is the UVM Club Gymnastics President and a volunteer for Red Cross. Pre-COVID, she spent time shadowing doctors at the UVM Medical Center. She achieved her shadowing hours by going to the UVM Medical Center’s webpage and emailing doctors from departments of interest to her. She did not hear back from some, but others responded. Specifically, Sydney had the opportunity to shadow an orthopedic surgeon. She was able to spend 10 hours in the OR observing a surgery and found it fascinating.  

Advice for Peer Undergraduates: 

Sydney’s advice for her peers is to recognize the importance of connections. Whether these connections are with your professors, advisors, or peers, they will help you significantly further your career. Speaking from her experiences, Sydney says without connections, she would not be in her research lab nor would she have been able to obtain shadowing experience. All it takes is some simple, professional emails or conversations to find a path to a new and rewarding experience. Sydney also warns her peers not to lose hope if you do not hear back from a connection. There may be lots of rejections or lack of responses at first, but “everything works out for a reason and you will find yourself exactly where you need to be.” 

By Health Professions Interest Group Leader Maggi Davis, ’21

We have amazing students at the University of Vermont who get involved in wonderful organizations. This week we’d like to introduce you to Key Nguyen, a senior Nursing major currently applying to graduate programs. This interview gives an insight into the flexibility of the nursing profession.

Campus Involvement:

Key is actively involved both on and off campus. In his first few years at UVM, he held leadership positions as a student senator in the Student Government Association and as a Resident Advisor. He used this time to develop more of his soft skills, like leadership and communication, and to gain strong connections on campus before diving into the nursing curriculum. Junior year, clinical rotations begin, and Key slowed down on his campus involvement to focus on academics. He is currently a student leader for SGA, the President of the Boulder Honor Society, and a student representative for the College of Nursing and Health Sciences Dean search committee. He wishes there were more than 24 hours in a day so he could be even more involved!

Converse Home:

Key started working for a local nursing home, The Converse Home, his sophomore year. He is a patient care assistant, working 25 hours a week to help support his family. Key feels fortunate to have had an early start into patient care, as many nursing majors don’t dive into this until junior year. He took Health Assessment (one of the first nursing-related classes) at the same time he started working at the Converse Home. Key was trained well and picked up a lot of skills as he went. He says he loves working at the Converse Home because of the great team and leadership.

Gerontology Interest:

Gerontology has always been Key’s area of interest and was the reason he applied to nursing school in the first place. He says he connects easily with older adults , and attributes some of this to his culture. Key is originally from Vietnam and was taught from a young age to venerate older adults. Throughout his life, caring for older adults has defined him, and helped him feel comfortable quickly in his role at The Converse Home. Communicating and interacting with the geriatric population comes naturally to Key, and because of this, he greatly enjoys his work at the nursing home.

Advice for younger nursing majors:

Key’s advice for younger nursing students is to start to get involved and to communicate with upperclass peers. To urge younger students to reach out, he says, “We are not that scary, and we love talking to underclassmen students and give advice to help them out.” He hopes first and second year students will be more proactive about asking juniors and seniors about the interesting opportunities they have had on their journeys. He also says it is a good idea to plan ahead. He feels it was an advantage to start working with patients way before starting clinicals in the hospital. This helped him have patient communication and assistance skills in his back pocket, so when he was in the hospital for clinicals, he only had to worry about the more technical skills he was learning. He says younger students do not have to wait to get to the hospital to start learning these communication skills, so start reaching out for opportunities!

Future Career Goals:

Key is currently in the process of applying to graduate programs, and has been working on his personal statement. He has gotten help with his applications from the pre-health advisor, Cara Calvelli, and from the UVM Writing Center. He is applying to Adult and Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner programs. This will allow him to focus on more preventative care for anyone 13 years or older. He says this is relevant to his minor in Behavioral Change Health Studies from the Larner College of Medicine. He believes the future of health care will be outside the hospital, and more focused on keeping people healthy and away from hospitals. After becoming a nurse practitioner, Key hopes to get a doctoral degree to hold a higher leadership position. His focus is also to help people from underserved communities, and more specifically, from immigrant or refugee communities. As an immigrant himself, he has a closer tie to some of the injustices within the US healthcare system, and he wants to dedicate his future work to change that. He wants to serve the people he holds close to his heart, who have similar backgrounds. Key also would like to move toward the political aspect of healthcare after gaining clinical experiences. Because a lot of change in healthcare starts at a federal level, Key wants to start tackling these changes from a legislative aspect. Key says his future career goals may change in the future, but he is open to change. This is something nurses are very good at, being flexible to changing however they need to in order to provide the best care.

DNP vs MD:

A DNP is a Doctorate in Nursing Practice that prepares students to become nurse practitioners (NP). An NP has similar responsibilities to a medical doctor. However, there are many important distinctions between the two. There is some confusion about the titles, since NPs are nurses who hold doctoral degrees. A DNP follows the nursing model for care, which is a more holistic approach to care that incorporates the whole person. The MD pathway uses the medical model, which is focused on disease processes and treatments. Both are necessary for patient care, but Key Nguyen identifies more with the nursing process. The DNP provides the opportunity for him to learn about both the clinical and leadership aspects of nursing care.

We have amazing students at the University of Vermont who get involved in some wonderful organizations. This month we’d like to introduce you to Mimi Hsu, a senior, who has found a creative and impactful way to volunteer despite pandemic. Learn about the organization she has  joined, Telehealth Access for Seniors. This  new non-profit, founded earlier this year by students at Yale University, has already made a palpable difference.

• Meet Mimi Hsu (she/her) ‘21
  • Major: Biochemistry
  • Career Goal: Unsure exactly what but knows she is interested in the healthcare field.  Considering going to PA school.
  • How did you become a volunteer for TeleHealth Access for Seniors? She heard about it through the Pre-health listserv and emailed the volunteer coordinator
  • What is TeleHealth Access for Seniors?
    • Given COVID-19, most medical practices have switched to a telehealth model where doctors connect with patients via video chat. Unfortunately, many elderly, low-income patients lack the camera-enabled devices necessary to attend these appointments. To help solve this problem, we collect old smartphones, tablets, and laptops for elderly patients so they can receive care for chronic conditions while avoiding the risk of infection. We also provide remote tech support and easy-to-use guides for how to set up devices, FaceTime, and various telehealth apps. We currently have a volunteer network of about 300+ students across the country and have donated 1860 devices and raised $80,000+.
    •  Volunteers coordinate with their state team to spread the word and seek device donations through social media, service organizations, news outlets, etc. Additionally, volunteers help collect, reset, and sanitize the devices at their homes before sending them to their local clinic or VA. We also ask volunteers to participate in weekly meetings with their state team.

• Mimi’s responsibilities as a student volunteer
  • Mimi was recently promoted to become a Vermont State Lead for the organization. This means she is now helping with volunteer recruitment and doing more administrative tasks. Prior to being a state lead, she dabbled in many different tasks. She learned how to write grants and dabbled in alumni outreach as well as tech support. There are also some fundraising options for students to help out with, but Mimi personally has not had much involvement in that. The volunteers generally pick up donated devices or organize drop off centers for people to donate devices. Overall, Mimi says there are a lot of different tasks you can choose to do and it is up to you, as the volunteer, to choose which ones you would like to focus on.
  • Mimi’s favorite & least favorite part about working for organization
    • Favorite Part: Mimi feels that this organization has allowed her to meet many people in the state of Vermont. Especially, with COVID, she has enjoyed the constant social interaction that this organization has.
    • Least Favorite Part: At the beginning she felt a little lost because this position requires a lot of self-motivation. It is a type of volunteer position where no one is going to hold your hand and tell you want to do. However, there are plenty of resources and people willing to help and teach you, you just have to ask!
  • The Time Commitment
    • According to Mimi, the time commitment is up to you. You set your hours. However, she generally devotes 5-10 hours a week to the organization.
  • How has this experience impacted her?
    • Between doing this and volunteering at 2 homeless shelters Mimi has begun to form strong ties with the Vermont community. She definitely believes that her networking skills/her ability to form long-lasting relationships with others have grown exponentially since starting the position. She also has realized how close the Community Health Centers work with low-income and seniors to provide adequate care. All her experiences within the organization have been positive. Mimi encourages that anyone interested joins since it is such a rewarding experience.
  • Additional things to know if you’re considering joining
    • YOU DO NOT NEED A CAR: Mimi stresses that a lot of people are hesitant to join because they feel they need a car to go pick up donated devices. She says a lot of pick up points are in a biking or walking distance.
  • Want to Join?
    • Things have slowed down since high school student volunteers are back in school and have less time on their hands. The organization is actively seeking student volunteers. If students are interested in joining Mimi and the rest of the Telehealth access volunteers, they can contact the volunteer coordinator Abe at abe.baker-butler@telehealthforseniors.org and mention that they found out about the program through Mimi Hsu.