Hello there! I’m Lily Menyelshewa, a senior at UNC-Chapel Hill majoring in Psychology on a pre-medicine track. In October of 2023, I started working as a CNA across the different inpatient psychiatric units at UNC Health. That is where I started becoming very interested and involved in mental healthcare. Working there, I have learned so much from my coworkers and my patients alike. Hearing their stories and supporting them through the healing process is a privilege.
One of my favorite parts of my job is watching my patients get better with a combination of therapy and medication. Watching patients go from being severely depressed to the point of not leaving their rooms or sleeping all day to laughing at a dumb joke or cracking the first smile in a week makes the job. That is second only to watching these patients eventually get discharged and slowly fight back for control over their mental health and, ultimately, lives.
But sometimes, when I’m washing dishes, folding laundry, or walking on a trail a patient recommended, I find myself wondering how they are doing. While finding out how my previous patients are doing is a difficult task, learning more about what they’re likely doing in outpatient was a great substitute.
It is with that mission that I applied for the Gil Internship. Already having explored inpatient psychiatry, I wanted to explore the world of clinical psychology and what it had to offer my patients and the general public. I am grateful to have received a spot in the Fall 2024 Cohort and ultimately intern at the UNC Community Psychology and Neuroscience Clinic under Dr. Jen Youngstrom.
At the clinic, one of the projects I learned the most from was cataloging the training clips. Because the clinic is a training clinic, sessions are recorded. My task was to watch, describe, and ultimately sort the clips based on the therapy being administered. Through this task, I was able to see how therapy styles have changed drastically throughout the past ten years.
Therapy is slowly becoming less button-up and more casual, making the relationship between therapist and client feel more honest. I also observed a lot of important conversations between clients and therapists about race and cultural sensitivity. In addition, what a therapist looks like is becoming more broad as more minorities pursue clinical psychology Ph.D.s. As a first-generation Ethiopian-American immigrant, I fully believe and live the reality that these are the types of conversations and changes that help destigmatize mental health in minority and immigrant communities. I also learned about and updated recommendations and available resources for various psychological disorders in a master document that therapists could readily access. I found myself amazed, especially by the rise of mental health apps and services and how many resources existed in the Triangle alone.
Ultimately this internship left me not only with appreciation for the potential of clinical psychology to change lives but also in awe of the different teams that form to support people working on their mental health from social workers, psychiatrists, nurses, clinical psychologists, app developers, etc. More fields are connected than not, and we have so much to gain from taking on interdisciplinary perspectives and creating teams with diverse educational backgrounds.
The more we know about the resources in our communities, the better we practice medicine and the better we support our loved ones. This lesson I walk away with is one I will carry with me, not only into my future career as a physician but hopefully, everywhere I go.
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