Internship Culmination

            As my internship experience draws to a close, I feel so fortunate to have had this opportunity to learn from such wonderful supervisors and colleagues, all of whom welcomed myself and the other PAWS interns and allowed us to ask questions, make mistakes, and take on responsibilities that permitted us to grow and expand our knowledge. I deeply appreciate all of the trust that my many supervisors placed in me by giving me a number of opportunities to manage the Welcome Desk at PAWS, both with their assistance and on my own, forcing me to work efficiently in an often-chaotic environment, manage time effectively, and problem-solve in order to keep our interactions with potential adopters running smoothly. I also appreciate their willingness to answer all of my questions; I tend to double- and triple-check everything I do with my supervisors before I actually do it, so their patience in clarifying instructions multiple times is astounding. Additionally, I am grateful for the friendships I have formed with the PAWS team, including both staff members and volunteers. They are all wonderful, caring people whose dedication to providing animals with the best lives possible is truly inspiring, and I feel fortunate to have met each of them.

            My internship at PAWS has allowed me to further develop a number of skills, including leadership skills, which will be essential as I pursue a career in the medical field. Though I am, by nature, quite shy, working at the Welcome Desk enabled me to become far more comfortable conversing with, giving directions to, and answering questions posed by potential adopters. As a doctor, I will need to be able to easily converse with a number of different people, including my patients and my colleagues, and effectively give direction to both, so I am glad to have gotten to practice and develop these skills now. I also was able to practice teaching others by training new volunteers to enter adoptions, record and respond to voicemail, and check guest surveys and remaining level-headed and rationally giving clear instructions during hectic, chaotic situations, often involving emotionally-charged emergencies, both skills that are necessary to the effective practice of medicine.

            I am very fortunate to be interning at an organization where I can continue to volunteer on a regular basis, even following the conclusion of my internship. Certainly, I plan to be at PAWS just as often next semester as I was while learning as an intern, as I fully believe in all of the life-saving work done at PAWS and want to continue to do my part to contribute to bettering the lives of animals. My phenomenal supervisors and colleagues have already promised to hold me to this plan, and I am excited to continue working with and being inspired by them. Additionally, cuddling with puppies as I begin the process of studying for the MCAT and applying to medical schools will be an absolutely wonderful way to de-stress a bit! PAWS has given me so many examples of just how great of a positive effect animals have on the lives of their companions, and everyone they come into contact with, so, ultimately, I hope to implement a strong animal therapy program while working as a pediatric oncologist to give the patients who desire this companionship and who would benefit from a four-legged buddy the chance to have an animal available to them at all times; for now, however, I am more than content continuing to help find PAWS animals their forever homes and ensuring they know how special and loved they are while they await these homes at the shelter. 

         

To adopt, foster, or volunteer to spend some cuddle time with Clemie, Airy, Buddy (left to right) and the rest of their friends, please visit www.pawschicago.org.

           Additionally, in order to better comprehend why PAWS Chicago’s mission to form a no-kill Chicago by 2015 is so important, please meet Miss Willow. Another Chicago shelter, Felines and Canines, took her in from Animal Care and Control, where she would surely have been euthanized, after she was found, too weak to move, on the streets; Felines and Canines reached out to PAWS volunteers to help save this beautiful girl, and, so far, more than $15,000 has been raised for her care. While it is simply amazing how a community can rally around one animal and save her life, it is absolutely imperative that we continue to fight to end animal neglect and cruelty and create a city where all animals, regardless of breed, can thrive. 

Small Acts, Great Impacts

           Though Peter Faber, the Jesuit priest and theologian after whom the service house in which I live is named, often spoke about the importance of seemingly-small acts of service, I find that, at times, I feel as though I am not truly contributing to PAWS or helping to save the lives of animals by returning voicemails or by entering a finalized adoption into the computer system. A number of situations and instances at my internship, however, have reminded me that anyone, even if he or she does not appear to be doing anything extraordinary or revolutionary, can make a difference and that, when people work collaboratively, their combined smaller contributions can have a significant impact.

            One such instance occurred on the first day of my internship when a young boy walked into the shelter with his mother. When I welcomed them and asked what we could help them with, the boy looked to his mother for reassurance before proceeding to explain to me, through the sweetest little stutter, that, rather than asking for birthday gifts this year, he requested that his friends and relatives give him money to donate to PAWS. He then handed me an envelope filled with checks, cash, and even some coins from his friends that he told me should be used “just to help all of the animals in the world” when asked if he wanted the donation to go toward anything special. At PAWS, there are donors who have written the shelter into their wills and donors who give hundreds of thousands of dollars annually, but the donation of this philanthropic little boy means just as much to us as do those larger donations, as they all aid us in feeding and caring for our animals. I felt so honored to have met this young man, who, even at the age of nine, recognized the importance of doing everything he could to contribute to furthering a cause about which he is passionate.

            A second situation which I remind myself of each time I feel that my small, day-to-day tasks as an intern do not make any real difference involved an emergency with an animal in which the entire PAWS team, including both staff and volunteers, came together and each did their own small part to save the animal. The dog, later dubbed Yoda, came into our adoption center as an extremely emaciated, sick stray who would not accept food or water and was terrified of people. She obviously needed to be taken to the emergency veterinarian immediately; however, the only people available to drive her were scheduled to volunteer as much-needed Adoption Counselors that day and her costly treatment could not be covered by PAWS, as she was a stray. Fortunately, everyone present rallied around this scared dog, with some volunteers offering to work longer that day or in different roles in order to allow two of their fellow volunteers to leave with Yoda. Additionally, though one of the volunteers who accompanied her to the veterinarian initially accepted the bill for her care himself, a large number of PAWS staff and volunteers contributed anything they could spare in order to help ensure Yoda received the best care possible. Though she still has a long way to go on the road to recovery from her parvovirus, Yoda was officially accepted into the PAWS program after the CEO made an exception to the typically-strict policy against bringing strays directly into our system and is now receiving treatment, learning how to trust humans, and being spoiled by the PAWS veterinary team and a team of volunteers and PAWS staff, all of whom love her to pieces, thanks to the combination of a number of individual, small deeds.

Miss Yoda displaying her trademark ears at the emergency veterinarian (top) and resting and recovering at the PAWS medical clinic (bottom)

            It is likely that I am not going to change the world by answering a phone call or by alphabetizing the adoption records from the first half of the year; however, even these small, seemingly-mundane tasks must be carried out in order for PAWS to continue and expand upon its life-saving mission. At my internship, I am constantly inspired by the willingness and even eagerness of people to contribute to causes they believe in in any manner they are able and by how great of an impact these small contributions make. As Peter Faber reminds us, we must “perform small deeds greatly,” and I am thrilled to see this being put into practice all around me at PAWS and to be a small part of their work to give animals like Yoda a wonderful life.

Effective Leadership

During our college and internship experiences, we are all developing and sharpening our leadership skills to allow us to effectively assume positions of leadership both now and in the future. One instance in which I believe that I was able to successfully utilize these skills was during rehearsals for the tap routine that I choreographed for The Dance Company last semester. I ensured that the dance would be challenging for all of the dancers; however, some struggled more than others to grasp the steps, forcing me to find a balance between teaching the choreography quickly for those who could pick it up, which often left those who could not do so completely confused, and breaking down each individual step multiple times for those who needed more time to pick up the choreography, boring the dancers who already knew the steps. Obviously, myself and all of my dancers sought to create a piece that we could be proud to perform at the end of the semester, so I ultimately decided to teach the dance at the pace of the more advanced tap dancers, whom I then asked to help me clarify the steps for the dancers who were having a harder time. In this way, all of the dancers were constantly engaged, either with teaching or with learning, and everyone mastered the routine better than they otherwise would have, as those helping me instruct their peers needed to completely understand the steps before being able to teach them, and those who could not immediately pick up the steps were ensured one-on-one time with someone who could focus on helping them learn at their own pace. Additionally, I welcomed the suggestions of my dancers as to what would make the dance more manageable for them, and, together, we made slight changes to the choreography that ultimately resulted in a cleaner routine. Following this semester-long learning experience, I believe my leadership approach fits best with the “Reciprocal Leadership Theories” and, particularly, the “Shared Leadership” subcategory therein, as I prefer that participants play an engaged role in the activity at hand, both by assuming the role of a leader at times and by participating in the mutual learning process by offering suggestions and helping each other to better comprehend the material. Without this shared leadership, I would have been unable to effectively meet the needs of all of my dancers, and I believe we would not have collectively created a dance that we could all feel comfortable with and proud of. The implementation of Reciprocal Leadership Theories and Shared Leadership will also be quite important in my future career; as a doctor, it will be essential that I collaborate with and welcome the ideas of others in order to provide patients with the best care possible. Though I may, at one point, be in charge of leading some of my colleagues, they will certainly all have valuable thoughts and ideas that will help myself and the group to accomplish the task at hand.

My wonderful dancers and I following our performance.

Exploring the “What-ifs”

For me, getting an internship with PAWS Chicago has been a bit of a whirlwind experience. More often than not, people seek out internships, researching the positions and applying months in advance; however, my experience in securing my new position did not involve a formal interview or anything of the sort. Rather, I found myself being offered an internship at PAWS during one of my regular volunteer shifts at the shelter a few days ago. Caught up in the aforementioned whirlwind, I readily and excitedly accepted the position, thinking only of the ways in which the internship would allow me to help more animals more often. In the days since, during which I have actually slowed down and realized that this will be a significant commitment, my excitement has not faded, but it is now accompanied by at least a bit of anxiety.

I find myself most anxious about being spread too thin to actually put my entire self into everything to which I am committed and about which I am passionate. In addition to my new internship, I am also the Rehearsal Director of The Dance Company at Loyola, enrolled in 21 credit hours, and applying to the Big Brothers Big Sisters program as a Big Sister. Living in a service house, my roommates and I focus on doing everything intentionally, which means not just volunteering our time simply to do so, but really putting a purpose behind the service about which we are all so passionate. I worry that, while I am involved in all of these things because I genuinely want to help people and animals while simultaneously helping myself grow into a better person, I will not be able to be as fully, intentionally devoted to everything as I would like to be with the addition of an internship.

Other worries, or “what-ifs,” surrounding my new position at PAWS include whether I will be able to assume the role of a leader easily, whether my shyness will interfere with the increased interaction with potential adopters and volunteers that I imagine the internship will entail, whether I am actually knowledgeable enough about the care of animals to be successful in this position, and whether I can live up to the impression that the PAWS staff member seemed to have of me when she so generously offered me an internship without so much as an interview. While I truly believe that this opportunity is invaluable and that this role is a wonderful fit for me, as I absolutely adore animals and look forward to learning more about not only animal care and keeping, but also about relating to and interacting with potential clients, it is often hard, at least for me, not to become overwhelmed by the anxieties.

In order to learn all that I possibly can from this experience, I feel it is important to combat the “what-ifs” by, first, acknowledging their existence and validity and by allowing myself to grow into the role gradually rather than expecting myself to fit perfectly the first day. Mistakes will happen, as much as I hate to admit that, but I think that it is important that I remind myself at these times that I was offered this internship because I have proved that I am deserving of it and that I can fulfill the position in a responsible, successful manner.

 

As I embark on the journey that is an internship, I do so with both excitement and anxiety; however, that anxiety seems perfectly manageable when I think about how much this position will enable me to help the PAWS animals, like Susie (pictured above), a remarkably sweet 11 year-old Shepherd Mix who so deserves a family to cuddle and love her. If these beautiful animals can handle the stress that inevitably accompanies life at even the nicest shelter, which PAWS very well may be, I am sure I can overcome the worries associated with my internship in order to take full advantage of this opportunity.