Ethics & Leadership in Health Care

August 31, 2016, Filed Under: Internship

Komen Austin Internship

Education and Community Outreach Intern

Reports to: Vice President of Mission Services & Community Outreach

Position Status: Intern (unpaid); Course Credit offered

Time Commitment: 15-20 hours per week (15 hrs. minimum anytime M-F between 9am-5pm)

Position Overview & Basic Function:

The Mission Services position is designed to provide professional development opportunities to students entering the work force in public health. The ideal candidate has an understanding of the Komen Austin Affiliate’s vision/promise, has a strong understanding of basic public health principles and how to implement them in the non-profit sector, is passionate about helping the underserved communities, and is an independent thinker and reliable professional whom is dedicated to this position. Strongly preferred: someone currently pursuing or who has obtained a degree in Health Education, Public Health, Community Health, Sociology, Anthropology or a closely related field.

Primary Responsibilities:

Outreach/Education-

Work with Office Coordinator to order educational material; manage supplies and materials
Work with VP of Mission to refine and implement outreach/education plan
Write newsletter article communications with Hispanic and African American women’s groups
Assist with the identification of events for both groups
Assist VP of Mission Services with miscellaneous projects as needed
Work with staff, and interns to assure communication is relayed on all events and assist and seek assistance as needed

Community Profile-

Data analysis and interpretation; seek out trends
Draft written reports
Update Community Profile PowerPoint as needed

Grantees-

Attend site visits
Attend Round Table meetings
Fulfill request and supply grantees with education materials and supplies
Fulfill miscellaneous requests of grantees
Assist with GeMS data management
Provide preliminary data reports

Required Knowledge & Skills:

Proficient in using MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, MS Word, and MS Outlook
Strong interpersonal, verbal and written communication skills
Efficient time management and responsible project planning skills
Ability to work well under pressure and meet office deadlines
Some college coursework or comparable professional experience
Bi-lingual or multi-lingual is a plus

Other:

Commitment to completion of an engagement in project assignments
Must be 18 years or older
Must have reliable transportation
Hours may vary from the standard 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. based on upcoming events. Evening and weekends may be required.

Benefits:

Experience in the non-profit sector
Program knowledge
Grants Management
“Hands-On” ownership of projects, building experience in project management
Collaboration and networking with multiple departments and customers both internal and external

To Apply:

Please submit a cover letter and resume to intern@komenaustin.org. Include the intern job title and your first and last name in the subject line of the email.

About Susan G. Komen® Austin

Susan G. Komen® Austin is an Austin-based nonprofit committed to saving lives locally and fighting breast cancer globally. Komen Austin is the only local breast cancer organization attacking the disease on all fronts – education, screening, treatment, follow-up care, survivorship support, advocacy and research. The organization serves the women and men in the city’s five-county area battling breast cancer by removing barriers to care for the uninsured and underinsured. Of the funds raised annually, Komen Austin invests up to 75 percent into local community health care grants and educational initiatives; the remaining 25 percent is invested into global research studies to find the cures for breast cancer.

August 16, 2016, Filed Under: Internship

Children’s Optimal Health Fall Internships

Children’s Optimal Health (COH) is a non-profit organization that supports central Texas communities to improve the health and well-being of children. COH works with these partners to create maps and analyze data at the neighborhood level to improve operations, inform policy, advance research, and engage the community. These efforts are used to address issues of health disparity and equity, to visualize change over time, and to create positive impact through collective action.

COH is seeking two interns for Fall 2016 semester to support data preparation and cataloguing for community research projects. Interns may work up to 15 hours per week on site at our office on 38^th Street or remotely. These internship opportunities are unpaid, but will provide a great introduction to the field of public health and to develop skills valuable for working with community data.

1. Data preparation internship: You will learn to geocode a large dataset of addresses to help ensure data quality for a study on child health. In this internship you will be trained and certified according to FERPA and HIPAA regulations in working with private data. We will introduce you to working with databases and mapping resources that are used to both transform and utilize this data for research. This is an excellent opportunity for students planning to work in public health, medicine, education, geography, or any field which works with community data for decision making.

2. Public data research internship: You will compile a database of publicly available datasets which relate to child and family health, safety, and welfare in central Texas. These datasets are highly valuable for use in studies on child and family health, and are a huge community asset. We will direct you to those resources we are currently aware of to be catalogued, and you will have the opportunity to network with professionals working with community data to identify new and additional resources. This is an excellent opportunity for students planning to work in public health, community advocacy, journalism, or any field working with community data for decision making.

To apply for either of these COH internships for Fall 2016, please send your resume and a letter of interest to Nic Moe (nmoe@cohtx.org) by September 9^th. In your letter of interest, clarify which internship opportunity most appeals to you and what you hope to accomplish this semester.”

August 8, 2016, Filed Under: Research

Pediatric Psychology Fall Research Opportunity

Faculty Researcher: DAVID HECKLER

Contact Details

David Heckler

drheckler@seton.org
512-294-8645

Description

Functional Gastrointestinal Diseases (FGID) are a family disorders that are characterized by gastrointestinal symptoms in the absence of readily identifiable organic pathology. Examples of FGID include irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), functional dyspepsia, abdominal migraine, functional abdominal pain, and functional abdominal pain syndrome. These disorders are classically thought to stem from dysfunction of the enteric nervous system. However, there is a growing recognition that multiple factors play a role in the genesis of FGIDs. This idea is encapsulated by the “biopsychosocial” model of disease, and is supported by a body of literature which has identified higher rates of FGID in patients with anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, agoraphobia, and other pychosocial dysfunction.

Recurrent Abdominal Pain (RAP) and IBS are major causes of pediatric morbidity. Over a third of children and adolescents report recurrent abdominal pain, and the overall prevalence of non-organic abdominal pain has been noted to be over 75% (Hyams, Treem, Justinich, Davis, Shoup, & Burke, 1995; Schwille, Giel, Ellert, Zipfel, & Enck, 2009). A large subset of these children report symptoms that are consistent with irritable bowel syndrome. Management of these children is complex and includes medical, dietary, and behavioral interventions. Medical therapy often revolves around the use of antispasmodics, probiotics, and antidepressants. The data supporting their use, however, has been mixed.

Over the last twenty years behavioral therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and hypnotherapy (HT) have come to light as major treatment modalities for functional gastrointestinal disease. In a large multicenter randomized controlled trial, Levy et al. (2010) compared 3-session CBT to a control intervention and noted significant improvements in pain and functioning in children. Similar results have been published in multiple smaller trials (Duarte, Penna, Andrade, Cancela, Neto, & Barbosa, 2006; Gros, Antony, McCabe, & Lydiard, 2011; Mahvi-Shirazi, Fathi-Ashtiani, Rasoolzade-Tabatabaei, & Amini, 2012; Robins, Smith, Glutting, & Bishop, 2005; Youssef et al., 2004). Likewise, Vlieger and colleagues (2007) compared hypnotherapy to standard medical therapy in 53 children with irritable bowel syndrome. They found that, while both interventions resulted in improved pain scores, the hypnotherapy group demonstrated lasting clinical improvement at 1 year follow-up. Five year follow-up data has recently been published and revealed that significantly more of the hypnotherapy group remained in remission without any further intervention (Vlieger, Rutten, Govers, Frankenhuis, & Benninga, 2012). A growing body of literature is available validating the use of hypnotherapy in irritable bowel syndrome in adults, and pain syndromes more generally (Calvert, Houghton, Cooper, Morris, & Whorwell, 2002; Rutten, Reitsma, Vlieger, & Benninga, 2012; Lindfors et al., 2012; Whorwell, Prior, & Faragher, 1984).

CBT and HT can be viewed as complementary to one another. CBT involves a very deliberate conscious understanding of one’s disease process and triggers and focuses on successful pain mitigation measures. HT recruits the imagination with utilization of therapeutic imagery to down regulate inappropriate pain responses. Our center has developed a collaborative approach, utilizing both CBT and HT for the treatment of refractory IBS. To our knowledge no work has been done assessing the efficacy of such a collaborative approach using both CBT and HT in children with functional gastrointestinal disease.

Finally, telehealth is a growing field aimed at reducing barriers to effective treatments. Telehealth allows specialty treatments to reach patients who are in need (Sato, Clifford, Silverman, & Davies, 2009). Telehealth is defined as the utilization of technology that allows providers and patients the opportunity to interact with one another from a distance (McGeary, McGeary, & Gatchel, 2012). Even though CBT via videoconferencing is an acceptable alternative to face-to-face CBT, the authors are unaware of any study that has compared the two different modes of treatment in addressing FGIDs in youth (Sato et al., 2009). Further, while previous research suggests that hypnosis can be effectively delivered via telehealth in adults (Appel, Bleiberg, & Noiseux, 2002; Simpson et al., 2002), this has yet to be examined for youth.

Qualifications

No specific qualifications. Must send resume to drheckler@seton.org and participate in an interview. Must be organized and dependable.

Project Timeline

Ongoing, beginning in the fall of 2016

Duties

data and project management within a multidisciplinary pediatric GI clinic. The clinic day is Thursday, so must be available on this day.