We Need a Little Christmas - Angela Lansbury - Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

In full swing

Two weeks of the second rotation are in the bag. Lots of new experiences. I am now working in the Cardio Vascular Rehab Center as an office adminstrative assitant. It was a realtively easy transistion because I remembered a lot of things from when I shadowed during the interview process. The people at the Cardiovacular Center are really helpful in helping me learn the ropes of the deparment. I am hoping to get more interaction with the patients then I did at the Oncology Center. My tasks include making copies, assembling packets,taking papers to medical records and data entry. I also help out with keeping the office looking tidy by watering the plants and disinfecting the heart monitors. It's a very interesting experience so far. I am learning a lot and hope to learn more as the second rotation goes along.

Happy Holidays everyone!

Part 3: The result

After much anxious waiting the results of the job placements for the second rotation have been announced. I was actually the first to find out but I decided to be fair to the rest of my co workers and wait to post the results on here until today. I got my first choice of the Cardiovascular Center. I start Monday and I am wicked excited.

Part 2: Interviews

Interviews for the second internship rotation are in the bag as of 10:45 am this morning, I had my interview today went the Front Desk. I think I will gain lots of new expereiences from either position. Now we wait til Monday when they announce who got what positon. I am anxiously awaiting this announcement and am crossing my fingers I get the Cardiovascular Rehab internship.

Today was my last day in the Oncology Center. I am very sad to leave that department behind and will miss everyone a great deal. They were all very welcoming and helpful to me.

Interviews

I was caught by surprise when I got to work on Wednesday and found I had an interview at the Cardiovascular Center at 9:00. It went well and I feel very confident about getting the position. My friend Kim also interviewed for the job and she feels her interview went well too. If I don't get this job this rotation it will be first on my list for next rotation. My next interview is at 10:30 on Tuesday at the Front Desk. Crossing my fingers and hoping it goes well.
If those two positions do not pan out one alternative is the Senior Center and another is possibly talking to my job trainer to see if I can stay on at the Oncology Center Front Office for the next rotation since no one has interviewed for that position.

Step 1: Job Shadowing

This week we have been going around to different department shadowing the different positions and see what they do in various departments. It's a really good idea because it helps us to narrow down our choices and decide which deparments are not a good fit for us.

Here is the list of places I am considering applying at

1st Choice Cardiovascular Center

#1 2nd Choice Front Desk

#2 2nd Choice Marketing- No position avaialable

#1 3rd Choice Breast Care Center

#2 3rd Choicc Human Resources- No position available
#3 3rd Choice Dictation - won't be avaialble til next rotation
#4 3rd Choice Medical Records- No position available.

Back ups (will be 1st or second choices for next rotation)
Senior Center
Mail Delivery

Up to this point I have job shawdoed for the Cardiovascular Center, Front Desk and Breat Care Center. The job in the Cardiovascular Center involves losts of data entry and filing and also getting the mail and delivering it to the doctors offices. I really liked that position a lot and think it would be a great fit for me. Front Desk is also something I think I would like to do. It's involves a lot of customer service and answering phones two things I am very good at. The Breast Care Center however is a job that I don't think will fit my skill set. While it has some data entry work as well as getting the mail a majority of the job consists of folding reminder letters about mammogram appointments which I think I will struggle significantly with. Yesterday I went to Vocational Rehab with Lori Corbett to job shadow dictation job. I think it went really well. There is no availbitly for that internship this time around but it'ssomething to consider for the 3rd rotation. This job involves recording meetings and then typing up meeting minutes.. something I've had somewhat of experiecne with when it comes to doing my Milford Cabinet interviews.


Thinking ahead to the 3rd rotation Dictation is a definite. I am hoping that Marketing Human Resources and Medical Records will have open positions. As far as other considerations we will have to see where the chips fall on interviews for this rotation and which position I get. Whichever job I do not get this time around will be my first choice for rotation three followed by Dictation.

Transitional period

So the first internship rotation is slowly winding to a close. Only two more full weeks left and then two days before we go on Thanksgiving vacation. The internship in IS ended up falling flat because a lot of the time they did not have a lot of work for me to do. Now I am working in the Oncology Center full time splitting time up between front office work and filling in for my friend Scott working with the patients. I am going to really miss working in the Oncology Center once the internship ends.

We have started to make our decisicions for where we want to go for our second internship. Marketing Medical Records and Human Resources did not end up having opening positions which was a bummer. It is also kind of disappointing that they do not have a very huge variety of jobs to fit my skill set though a few new departments have opened up Office Admin internships. On Monday and Wednesday I job shawdoed in the Cardiovascular Rehab Center which I really enjoyed. I think I will benefit a lot from that position if I get the job. The other two top choices I have are the Front Desk and The Breat Care Center. My back ups are Endoscopy the mail route and the Senior Center. Interviews begin the week after next. Crossing my fingers that I get one of my top two choices.

Fun Fridays amd Talk of Rotation 2 part2

So since my last entry my opinon on Fun Fridays has drasctically changed. I have already talked to my Project Search teacher about this. Hopefully we end up splitting up more of our classroom time between work and fun.



The thing that bothers me about Fun Fridays is that we are supposed to be training for jobs and I feel the kinds of activities that we do takes time away from working on job skills we should be training for. Celebrting birthdays and holidays or doing community service activites doesn't bother me but there are certain other things I feel we can do with out

This first rotation is flying by... I can't believe there is less than a month until its over I found out that Marketing has no open positions which is a bummer so I had to go back and revise my list of departments I am interested in . The Front Desk is my #1 choice.
Here are the rest of my choices for potential internship sites
1st Choice #2 Cardiovascular Center or Dictation Internships just opened up in these department. The Cardiovascular Center is office work which involves data entry,answering phones and taking messages and filing. Dictation is taking notes at meetings and typing them up at a later time.
Ist Choice #3 Human Resources General office work
2nd Choice Breast Care Center
3rd Choice Endoscopy
4th Choice 3 North
Back Up Mail Delivery

I can't wait to start the interview process and learn more about the new departments that are opening up positions.

Fun Fridays and talks of rotation 2

So to give our minds a break from the stressful and busy work weeks the job trainers iniated Fun Fridays. What this means is that every Friday afternoon after our half hour break we do a fun activity to unwind. Last week we decorated cookies. I missed that because I was out sick but luckily there are tons of cookies left over so we will get to do that tomorrow as well since there were a few people absent last Friday besides me. I think that Fun Fridays is a really good idea.
We found out more updates about Scott's injury. He is going to be having surgury on Monday and then will be out for 10 weeks recovering. I will be filling in for him in the Oncolgy Center while he is out. I am wishing a speedy recovery for him. Last week was really slow in IT so I didn't have a lot to do on Tuesday. Thursday I had more to do but I had trouble focussing because I wasn't feeling good. Staying home on Friday really helped me out because it helped me to recover from my cold... which I initally thought was allegies but it turned out being a cold. The Oncolgy Center keeps me on my toes and I really like the people I work with there. I also like the people in IT too.

This morning in morning meeting we talked about the next rotation and what our intended internship sites will be. We each shared what we do for our current internship, what we like about and our top 3 choices for our 2nd rotaion.
MY top 3 choice are
1. Marketing (hopefully they have an opening,.. if not then my back up is the Front Desk)
2. Breast Care Center
3. Endoscopy.
There is also a new position opening up for Mail Delivery that sounds pretty interesting. That may be a good back up in case nothing else pans out. It will give me opportunity to learn my way around the hospital beter.

A little variety

Today IT did not have anything for me to do so I was in the Oncology Center all day. My friend Scott has been out recovering from an injury so instead of working in the office I worked in the back of the oncology center with the patients. It was a great way to change thing up a little. I basically made sure all the patients were comfortable and gave them magazines. I also took care of ordering and delieveriy lunches. At the end of my shift I talked to my boss Terry about splitting up time between the office and working the patients.. she aaid that was something we could definitley try to work out so I'm pretty excited. I have no idea how long Scott will be out for but I'm glad I can fill in for him while he is recovering from his injury.

1st week of rotation one in review

Aside from initial job placement stress the first week of the first internship rotation of Project Seach went well. I am very excited for the weeks to come. I am splitting my time up between two different departments, IT on Tuesdays and Thursdays in the mornings and the Oncolgy Center front office on Monday Wednesday and Friday and Tues and Thursday afternoons. In the IT department I do data entry work and make sure that databases about the computer systems through out the hospital are up to date as well as get the mail. In the Oncology Center front office I do filing and also take the mail to the mail room and pick up the incoming mail and distribute it in the different doctor's mailboxes. The people in both departments are very nice. It's going to be a fun and busy ten weeks. Very well worth it. :)

Thinking aheas the the next rotation I already have a definite of my first choice for an internship site and that would be Marketing. It didn't pan out this time around because there wasn't enough work to do. If those don't end up working out my back up choices are either staying in the departments I'm in currently or working ih the Breast Center or at the Front Desk.

The snafu has passed

Okay so you're all probably wondering what I meant by a snafu in the process of finding an internship in my last entry Let me elaborate

I had an interview last week in the Pharmacy for the first round of internship. Based on the interview I thought it would work out fairly well. Part of my disability is a vision impairment and one thing I struggled with when I worked at Target last year was lining things up on the shelves neatly. My strengths mostly lie in data entry and computer work so I worked hard with the job trainers to find something else to do since I figured there might be a possibility the Pharmacy would not work out well for me. I am going to spliting up my first rotation between the Oncology Center Front Desk and the IT department doing data entry. I am excited and slightly less stresed because I didn't think I would find anything.

I look very foward to Monday and Tuesday.

A new blog for a new direction

Hello
My name is Janine Leffler. I am 25 years old and live in NH. I am currently involved in a job training program for young adults with disabilities called Project Search at St Joseph's Hospital in Nashua NH. The goal of this blog is to educate people about the program based on my experience and hopefullly get people interested in enrolling for next year.

I have been in Project Search for two weeks which has mainly consisted of orientatrion and getting acquainted with the layout of the hospital. We filled out surveys of interest in regards to what areas in the hospital we'd most like to work in. I have run into a small snafu with my job placement but I am working that out over the course of the next couple days. My main goal for being part of this program is to get full time work so I can move out and live on my own with in the next year. I also hope to get more public relations experience to add to ever growing resume. I think it is important for me to get public relations experience in other areas besides theatre because it will give me new insight to how a different professiom does public relations work.


I will update this blog as often as I can given my current computer isssues. I recently got a virus on my computer but hope to get that fixed soon

Thanks for following this blog!

Janine