Vishal's Final Thoughts

Sorry for posting this a day late, but my internet was down all day yesterday, and we just got Verizon to fix it this morning.

As for this class, I think I might have gained the most in here in comparison to my other courses here at GW. Having a 14 year old sister has given me some exposure to dealing with the current generation of adolescents (which is significantly different than my generation, even though I was one not too long ago). However, I had very little experience working with adolescents from an urban setting, and was surprised with the how they responded to our sessions. I definitely think that adolescents are willing to talk about and learn more about health issues than we (adults) think they are. I think the PH community needs to focus on this age group because they are the future, and helping them make healthier choices now, will benefit everyone down the road.

As for fitting adolescents into my career, I don’t see this happening for some time. Wanting to continue in health care consulting, I don’t see many opportunities for working for adolescent health, largely due to the lack of focus that is geared towards them in main stream medicine. However, I will want to go back to making adolescent health a priority later in my career when I hope to be working in healthcare/hospital admin. At that point, I will hopefully be in a position which allows me to have more input in how things are run, and like I mentioned before, improving the health of the country’s youth is essential for the future since they are the ones that will be taking over once the current generation becomes too old.

Thanks Alis and Sara, this was a great class!
Vishal