Aliza Panjwani: Hi, everyone. My name is Aliza Panjwani. I'm a postdoctoral fellow at the 
Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto, Ontario. I am not actually here, but I thought I'd 
keep the spirit alive by showing you what one of the entrances to the medical center looks 
like. So I was part of the health psych track, and I was coming from New York City, where I 
completed my PhD in health psychology and clinical science at the Graduate Center, City 
University of New York.

[Video of Aliza Panjwani wearing a black shirt in front of a greenscreen background of an entrance to the Wexner Medical Center.]

So, of course, my experiences will focus more on the health psychology stream. I had a lot of 
wonderful experiences on internship, and so I'm going to try to focus on a few specific things 
that I appreciated. For one, I thought all the supervisors across my rotations were very 
supportive of my training goals and also my interests.

So, a few examples of that. On the women's health rotation, I was really interested in trauma 
and trauma counseling, and so I had the opportunity to do cognitive processing therapy with one 
of my patients, and Doctor Carpenter supervised me on that. I enjoyed that experience so much 
that I since sought additional training, and I am now able to offer evidence-based trauma 
counseling on fellowship, which has been really nice.

Similarly, cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, I had some experience on it in graduate 
school, and so I wanted to seek more. And I had the opportunity to take an elective with Dr. 
Rampala. It was a group CBTI, and that was a wonderful training experience. And again, I find 
myself using that on fellowship in developing a virtual CBTI group for cancer survivors and 
their caregivers.

In Dr Carmen's behavioral cardiology track, I was really interested in the end-of-life and 
palliative phase, and so she connected me with the palliative team, whom I got to shadow. I 
learned a lot from them. And then it also felt like when I ran into those people in the 
hallway, we could exchange thoughts on a mutual patient.

And it was such an interdisciplinary feel through that whole rotation, which I really, 
really appreciated. So, as you can see across the board, supervisors want you to gain as much 
as you can on internship. And I think that's a definite strength of this program. Secondly, I 
had a lot of racial and ethnic diversity coming into this internship.

So, not that you don't get that at Ohio State, but I already had a lot of that coming from 
New York. What I had less of that I felt I got to expand on, on internship was seeing more 
patients from rural areas and seeing a range of socioeconomic status, which a lot of the 
patients I saw in New York City during my doctoral program, they were very therapy savvy.

I didn't necessarily find that to be a common trend at Ohio State. It was really helpful, 
for example, on Doctor Kuhn's transplant rotation, to see how she worded certain 
psychodiagnostic questions to be able to get to the heart of the matter, so that the 
patient understands what you're asking without using jargon.

And so I certainly continue to emulate some of what I learned from her on that rotation on 
fellowship. In addition, this internship program has something called the mentorship program, 
and they encourage you to pick a mentor that is not a direct supervisor for you on any of 
your rotations, and that space is basically your space.

I used it to talk about both challenges and successes across rotations. I felt very safe in 
doing so. I also used it as time for professional development, where I sought advice. My 
biggest thing was balancing personal and career goals. And I felt I received invaluable 
perspectives, I mean, from all my supervisors, but more in-depth with my mentor, that I had.

And so I really appreciate this mentorship program. I'm surprised that not all internships 
offer it because it's so helpful and so invaluable. So that's another big strength of this 
program. Thirdly, just, I mean, or fourthly, can't remember now. I wanna make a plug for 
Columbus. So, I'm not from the States, and I really, my only kind of exposure to the States 
has been New York City.

So I really didn't know what to expect from Columbus, and I was really, really happy with 
the city; it's amazing. There's a lot of good food. Definitely go to Jeni's for dessert if 
you get a chance for ice cream. There are a lot of young professionals. Ohio State, 
obviously, being Ohio State, you know, there's a lot of pride.

You're gonna meet a lot of people on different rotations, even outside of the internship. 
You might get to know some of the residents, and that can be really, really fun. I think 
it's a vibrant atmosphere with a lot of professionals from various medical backgrounds, 
and it's always great to be, you know, in an environment like that.

So anyway, that's my spiel. I wish you all the best of luck. I hope that you end up in 
all the right places in terms of internship placements, and take care, and good luck.