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Good morning. My name is Glorimar Maldonado, and I am the chief of staff for the White
House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. I'm currently working for the
Office of Diversity and Inclusion at the Office of Personnel Management, and I'd like to welcome
you to our summer school webinar series.
Today we're focusing on how to get jobs in the federal science-based professions, and
we've got a great group of folks here to talk to you about not just the medical divisions
pertaining to the federal government but also some areas where you may not have thought
it could be possible for you to get a job.
So, without further ado, let me go ahead and introduce Richard Gudnitz. He's the recruitment
manager for NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center here in Greenbelt, Maryland. Right? Correct?
Richard Gudnitz: That's correct.
Glorimar: And he's going to help facilitate the discussion. And one more quick reminder.
We will send out a recap email next week, giving you the video link to today's webinar,
and then we also will provide some supplemental materials, links, and the contact information
for the speakers, in case you have additional questions or need further information.
So, Richard?
Richard Gudnitz: Morning. Hope everyone's going well today. I'm especially excited to
be here, representing NASA as well as the federal government, and I'm very pleased to
be joined by a very distinguished panel of outstanding women who are actively involved
in very committed public service.
I'll first introduce Dr. Irma Lawrence from the National Institutes for Food and Health,
through the United States Department of Agriculture. Next is Commander Felecia Bailey from the
Department of Health and Human Services, the Commissioned Corps. And finally, Dr. Migdalia
Rivera-Goba from National Institutes for Health.
So we're really excited that we've got this panel here today. Hopefully, you will be engaged
and actively participating in the questions and taking very good notes, because you're
going to get a lot of information today. Hopefully, we will be able to present it to you in a
manner that is understandable. The federal government as well as the military, we have
a habit of sometimes using acronyms, so please excuse us if we go into that acronym mode.
We'll try and do our best to make sure we spell everything out.
The first question I wanted to ask was to Dr. Lawrence. In your role at the USDA, wonder
if you could elaborate on some of the things that go on there. There may be some questions
that some folks out there have regarding the United States Department of Agriculture.
I know, personally, I was born in Minot, North Dakota. A lot of prairies, a lot of farms,
a lot of open spaces that I spent a lot of time looking at. That's often what I first
think of when I think of the US Department of Agriculture, and maybe there's some other
folks out there who may have the same thoughts, but hopefully we can dispel some of those
myths with some insight into what goes on over there.
Dr. Irma Lawrence: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here and talking to you all
this morning about the Department of Agriculture. At USDA, everybody thinks that we just work
with cows, plows, farmers, and ranchers. And I was thinking in my way here, it's like we
don't have one job description that actually is called "farmers" or "rancher." We don't
hire potato growers. We actually help these farmers and ranchers of the community.
At USDA we use science and technology to help producers and help the communities. As USDA
celebrates its 150th anniversary, we have been doing this for a while, we would like
you to be part of it.
The Department of Agriculture has offices all over the country. Every county in the
United States has an office. So if you want to work in Alaska there are jobs at the USDA
there for you in science. If you want to work in Hawaii, the same thing. Or if you want
to stay where you are, there are jobs everywhere.
What we try to do is provide leadership in food, agriculture, natural resources and all
the sciences that support these issues. We do our work based on sound policy and the
best available science, and that's why we need you. Today we're growing the future scientists.
We use all this science to efficiently manage our agriculture and our food and all the things
that come along.
At USDA we work to do different things. One of them is create prosperity. We're trying
to sustain our communities so that everyone could be economically thriving.
How does that relate to you? You want to be part of this. We want to preserve, we want
to conserve and restore our environment in the same way we want to increase food security
for us here, for our families, and for the world.
Again, we want to do that, and you hear my colleagues talking a little bit about this,
having access to safe nutritious and balanced meals. I want to mention that we have probably
15 to 20 positions at USDA, thousands of them.
So we have thousands of biologists, we have thousands of chemists, we have thousands of
foresters. We have jobs that are indoors in the lab. We have jobs in offices. We have
jobs in the forest. So we have all these kinds of jobs that will feed your lives.
If you like computers we do a lot of computer work. We have all these networks. We have
all these websites. We use technology to advance the work we do.
We're saving farmers millions of dollars by introducing engineering. We're using something
called precision agriculture, so we use as much water or nutrition to feed the plants.
We don't waste it. We just don't throw it.
There are all these kinds of jobs, from Baltimore to people that work with chocolate. You may
be asking," Chocolate?" There are people working at USDA, the agriculture research service,
trying to save chocolate. There is some disease attacking the plants that produce the cocoa
for chocolate and we have people working on that.
So, think about it. Who would not like to work for an agency that is trying to save
chocolate?
Richard: I definitely hope that we can make sure we save chocolate.
[laughter]
Wish I had some chocolate now. But, I digress. Thank you very much Dr. Lawrence. It sounds
like there's a lot of exciting things going on over at USDA.
One of the things that really jumped out at me was the mention of food security. I was
wondering if you could possibly elaborate a little bit more on that, because it sounds
like a little bit of an unfamiliar area, at least to myself.
Dr. Lawrence: What we're trying to do is every time we have diseases in plants or animals
that attack our crops, we have researchers, teams of people, actually that bring students
in and they investigate what is the cause and how could they prevent that from happening.
That's how we work on food security.
The other things we do is we try to find ways of producing food faster, more efficiently
and in greater amounts so we can produce enough food for us and to export to other countries
that might need food.
Richard: Outstanding. Moving right along, we've also got the only panel member in uniform
today, Commander Bailey from Health and Human Services. Feel free to elaborate a little
bit on some of the exciting things that you're involved with.
Commander Bailey: Good morning. Thank you very much for having me today. It's a pleasure
to be here.
I'm a registered nurse, by profession. I've been a nurse for about 15 years. But I joined
the Commission Corps of the United States Public Health Services about nine and a half
years ago. What the commission corps does, it is a part of the federal services that
is under the Department of Health and Human Services.
We are a corps that serves the underserved populations. We're also in research. As part
of my career with the Public Health Service, I have served at the Bureau of Prisons. I've
also done some research at the National Institutes of Health. I'm currently now working at the
headquarters where we advocate and try and get more individuals to join the corps, so
it helps to meet our overall mission.
But as a nurse in particular, this is a very exciting field to keep in the back of your
minds as a profession for you, one day. Mainly because there are so many things that you
can do as a nurse.
For me particularly I have worked, as I said, in research. I've worked in pediatrics. I've
worked with adults. That's just a small amount of what you can do as a nurse.
Most people think that you have to work in a hospital. You don't have to do that. You
can go and practice in family physician's, clinics. I also worked in the medical/surgical
unit over at Fort Mead, which is in the federal government, that helps serve our soldiers
and their dependants. Which is another fascinating experience that I had because I was able to
help those who serve our country.
Like I said, the nursing field is very broad. You're not at any limitations. The sites are
so far, as far as your imagination. Whatever you think of, you can possibly do in the field
of nursing.
Richard: Outstanding. What type of education is required in 2012 to become a nurse? One
of my aunts retired as a nurse in the St. Petersburg, Florida, area, but she never had
to attend college in this...at the time that she was working. So I was curious if we could
elaborate a little bit on the education required in present day for entering into the nursing
field.
Commander Bailey: I think that is an excellent question. It hasn't changed too much. There
are...there are certain levels. To practice as a registered nurse, you can attend a two
year community college and get your, what we call an RN, or your registered nurse, or
you can start off at the undergraduate level and receive your bachelor's in nursing. And
the difference between the two is the two year degree level will pretty much allow you
to do more hands-on, whereas the bachelor's degree level will allow you to be more in
supervisory and management roles.
And then we have the next levels, which is a master's prepared, and then those specialties
are far and wide. We have informatics, so you can be a nurse and work computers and
numbers. And I received my master's in community and public health nursing, and that's because
I am in public health now, and I love involvement in community. But that's another area.
We have teaching that you can go into. So that level will...can take you into so many
other areas as well. And then, of course, you have your doctoral level. We also have...I'm
currently now pursing my nurse practitioner degree, which will allow me to practice a
little more independently as a mid-level provider. But that baseline degree, again, will have
to be at the at least a bachelor's level in nursing.
Richard: All right. Wonderful. So hopefully we were able to dispel a few myths today,
and one of the myths, at least from my experience, and it's also caught on in Hollywood. I'm
a big movie guy. There's a movie that many of you may remember called "Meet the Parents."
Commander Bailey: Yes.
Richard: And the main character was Ben Stiller. He was a male nurse. And he was poked...there
was some poking of fun and some jokes made about that. But I just wanted to see if you
could elaborate a little bit on the fact that there is no specific gender requirement, as
far as becoming a nurse.
Commander Bailey: You are exactly right. And I'm married to a nurse. [laughs] My husband
is also a nurse. We actually met in college, in undergraduate school. And so it is a myth.
The bottom line is nursing is a profession of people who want to help others. They want
to see other people healthy. They want to make sure that they stay healthy, and when
they're sick, they want to try and make them well.
There's no specific gender, race, color, who is excluded from that. So if you're a person
who loves people and who loves to see people happy and love to make their day, whether
they are small or large adults, pediatrics, geriatrics, then the nursing profession is
one definitely that you want to, you know, seek.
Richard: Wonderful. Wonderful. Were you ever squeamish at the sight of blood in the early
stages?
Commander Bailey: No. Actually, I wasn't. But you know, that's also, I think, another
myth, because that's...a hospital setting, but as I said earlier, in the field of nursing,
it's not the hospital setting that will be your only choice. There are so many other
avenues. So perhaps you may be a little squeamish. If you can get through those couple of years
in school and look at what the future will hold and what the things that you can do with
your degree, then I think that that's something that you could work on.
Richard: Outstanding. Outstanding. Doctor Migdalia Verva-Goba from the National Institutes
for Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Definitely looking forward to hearing about some of the
exciting things that take place at NIH. Is NIH part of the Department of Defense? How
is the...the breakdown with NIH in relation to the military?
Dr. Migdalia Verva-Goba: The NIH, and thank you. I'm thrilled to be here with all of you.
I'm really excited about being able to reach out and talk to people about what we do at
the NIH. The National Institutes of Health comes under the Department of Health and Human
Services. We are...what we do is research. And often times when people think about NIH,
they think about funding. And that's true. NIH has what we call the intramural five and
the extramural.
And as I said, most people think of the extramural, which is that people apply for grants and
just lots of different venues for moneys to go out into the communities and to colleges
and to various settings across the world. I am actually with the intramural side, and
the intramural side is the part of NIH...it's smaller than the extramural, but still a significant
piece...that we actually conduct research within the NIH campus.
And as you say, the Bethesda is our primary campus. If any of you have not seen it, it's
a beautiful campus. You walk in and just to look at building one with those wonderful
pillars, you feel...I mean, just walking...or driving in or walking, however you come in,
you feel like you are truly a public servant. So I love the campus. It's a beautiful campus.
And so the other piece that people often times don't know is that within the NIH, we have
a hospital, and that's within the clinical center. And there are about 1,000 nurses that
are at the clinical center. And as my colleague here mentioned, within nursing, which is the
area that I'm most familiar with, and I will address more specifically, there's an array
of different positions. We were chatting briefly before the panel started, and I said I'm in
NIH, but I've not ever done bedside nursing because of the way I came in and my interest.
But there are a lot of nurses doing bedside nursing. There are a lot of different opportunities
that occur within NIH. Our goal is clinical research. And under the leadership of our
chief nurse officer, Doctor Clare Hastings, we are actually defining that specialty for
the country and ultimately beyond...beyond, what is clinical research nursing. Because
that's a big part of what we do.
I came in, as I just mentioned, because of the vision of our leadership within the nursing
department to create a post-doctoral fellowship for a minority nurse, to provide skills, give
training, give experience, so then that individual could go on and do research within minority
communities.
So that was the vehicle, how I first came to NIH ten years ago. After my post doc was
done, I loved NIH, and I wanted to stay there, so I transitioned into a different position.
But it is a phenomenal place, because it is such...just as I mentioned that I came in
through this vision of our leadership, that's one of the things that I think is really great
about the NIH, and I can speak more specifically about the clinical center, that we really
work hard at training others, at giving others opportunities at making ourselves available
because we want people to understand what it is that we do and we also want to encourage.
We want to increase the pipeline and so that's really important to all the work that we do.
As I've mentioned, we are a hospital. We're about 230 some odd beds in-patient hospital
but not a hospital in the traditional sense that people think about a hospital. As I said,
our primary focus is clinical research. We do not have a maternity unit and we do not
have an emergency room, but fortunately for us right across the street we have Suburban
Hospital where all emergencies go and right across the other side of the street we have
Waltereen, a Navy medical hospital.
We're there to care for patients and every patient that comes to the clinical center
is involved in some type of research. We have patients who are sick, different illnesses,
and that's how they participate in the research, but then we also have healthy volunteers,
people who don't have. We need to look at both groups.
To echo, again, what you said, there's just so much we can do with the nursing and it
is incredibly wonderful place to be at the clinical center and nursing department. There
are lot of opportunities for growth, there are lot of opportunities to learn different
things. At the heart of it, for me, it always comes back that no matter what job we're doing
I always see the patient at the center.
No matter what we do, it's how will it impact the patient. We see patients as our partners.
We know that they're involved in research. We address them as partners and they really
feel like they are partners with us within the field. I'm not sure if I said this but
I'll repeat it because it's so important. We are the world's largest research hospital
and that's a really cool thing because that means we reach out to everybody.
Richard: Wow, the world's largest. That's very exciting. Is there anything that you
can share on some of the groundbreaking clinical research that's going on right now, maybe
off the top of your head?
Dr. Goba: As I said, I'm more familiar with the nursing department side, but many of you
know the work that's been done in genome and you know how incredible that has been. There
have been discussions of what's happening on the research with NIAID and immune deficiency
diseases.
There are a lot of things that are happening. Some may be aware of the work that's being
headed by Dr. Gaul in terms of rare diseases. There are a lot of interesting things. We
have world renowned researchers, we have people at all levels who are just committed to making
an impact and making a difference in the healthcare of our nation and, again, beyond.
Richard: You mentioned NIAID. That's one acronym there I'm not familiar with.
Dr. Goba: I'm so sorry.
Richard: No problem.
Dr. Goba: Of course, now the flipside that happens with us is we always remember the
acronym and then we forget the wording. It's the National Institute of Aids and Infectious
Diseases. I hope I got that right, my colleagues at NIAID.
Richard: Thank you, thank you. We definitely have been discussing professions that all
fall within the category of another acronym that's commonly tossed around, STEM. Most
often it's recognized as science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. However, there's
been a lot of discussion as of late as to adding a second M to include medicine. Science,
technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine.
That certainly encompasses the medical field. I'm not sure if you all had heard that at
all added on?
Dr. Goba: No.
Dr. Lawrence: I have heard of adding an A for agriculture. We want to add an A for agriculture,
make it STEAM.
Richard: Interesting. That's the first I've heard that as well. Everyone here today is
located in the DC Metropolitan area. I'm in Greenbelt which is right outside of DC between
Baltimore and Washington DC and Maryland. We've got representation from Rockville and
Bethesda. I was curious if any of you are actual natives of the DC Metropolitan area?
I myself am not. My parents were both in the military so I traveled all over as a young
kid. I think it was five different elementary schools and four different middle schools.
One high school, though. [inaudible 24:08] High School in Florida. I've been in the DC
area since about 2000. Left twice, came back after each time I've left. I can't seem to
get away.
Just curious if you all are from the area or if you're from other locations across the
US?
Dr. Lawrence: Personally, I am originally from Puerto Rico. I completed a Bachelors
degree in biology. How I got to the United States was interesting. I sent out applications
for graduate school and the first response, positive response, came from Pennsylvania
so I relocated there and finished my graduate degrees and then came back.
I had no idea where I was going in Pennsylvania and I just knew I had a big suitcase. My mom
put in my suitcase everything she could including a frying pan, tried to make sure I was OK.
Richard: Was that for protection?
[laughter]
Dr. Lawrence: It was for cooking, which I didn't know how to do anyway. I took the risk
of moving away from home and leaving my family, first time in a plane, coming to the States,
and actually exploring a second language and learning. It was just for the passion of learning
and science. I got to the States, finished my degree, and applied for jobs and then up
here in DC I have worked in non-profits, I have worked in consulting firms.
The opportunity to work in the federal government, I must say, is priceless. Every day I wake
up and I say oh my goodness I have to do this because I have to make sure I help these people
in Texas, I help these people in California. How do I do that? I manage a grants program
that helps institutions of higher education produce programs in science and culture.
We have all these students involved and the actions we do and making sure things go right
and the money gets transferred, it really touches people's lives. I don't want to stop
talking before saying to the teachers that we have grants for room K through 12 where
you can ask for funds to improve your teaching, your lab, your classroom, and provide new
opportunities.
We had opportunities for colleges and two year colleges and four year colleges to improve
the teaching in agriculture and provide experiences. Actually, we provide funding for universities
to give scholarships out. We're very interested in you.
I'm getting a little bit away, but USDA hires about 7,000 interns every year across the
country. For the students, high school, college students, you could be one of those students.
I have students in my office and they help me do things from how to log in to my phone
to actually teach them how to use Excel, do graphs, read, synthesize, write about science,
and get them interested.
The whole idea of trying, by trying they get to learn and get to experience. I got here
through a kind of random process but I have been loving every minute of it and the opportunity
to work at USDA as a federal employee is great.
Richard: Wonderful. Would you happen to be an alumni of University of Puerto Rico?
Dr. Goba: Yes.
Richard: Which campus?
Dr. Goba: Mayagues campus; so anybody Mayagues here we go.
Richard: Wonderful. I ask because I've been down there on two separate recruiting trips.
I remember clearly the first time I landed on campus and it is phenomenal. Some of the
best students that I've recruited, especially for NASA, have come from UPR and I think it's
often one of those overlooked institutions. I hope that we can continue to get more UPR
students.
If you're listening out there, make sure you all take good notes and don't be so afraid
to leave the island. I know it's beautiful. It's paradise down there, but we've got some
great opportunities up here in the east coast in the DC area. Commander Bailey.
Commander Bailey: Yes. Originally I am from North Carolina. I graduated from North Carolina
Central University with my Bachelors in nursing.
Richard: CIAA. Do they fall under CIAA?
Commander Bailey: Yes. No, I don't think we did. I don't think we do. Yes we do. I don't
know.
[laughter]
Richard: We'll look it up.
Commander Bailey: OK. I traveled a little to Maryland after I worked in North Carolina
for a couple of years. My husband was in the army first and then that's when I got my first
position as a nurse over at Fort Mead. Then I got my Masters degree from the University
of Maryland. I went back and worked a little bit also in Virginia. I've been mostly on
the east coast in driving distance between North Carolina and the DC Metro area pretty
much for most of my career.
Richard: Did you grow up in the city environment or small town?
Commander Bailey: Small town. I grew up in agriculture. My grandmother had me work in
the garden. Knowing how to can and freeze vegetables and things. I have the best of
both worlds. What sparked my interest in ever becoming a nurse was it was a bright light
that went off one day when my mom took me to visit a family member who just had a baby.
When I saw that nurse come in the room I said that's it. That's what I want to do. It was
all about her helping someone. I never knew about a nurse until that moment. Never crossed
my mind. Knowledge is great. Knowing about it right now and pursuing it and finding out
exactly what it is that you can do with this to help others. This is a wonderful opportunity
at such young ages.
I was young. I probably was nine or 10. I remember it just as clear as I'm sitting here
this day.
Richard: Outstanding. Outstanding. Dr. Goba.
Dr. Goba: It's so interesting to hear from my colleagues, and I'm sure soon to be friends.
My story's a little different but actually incorporates pieces of what they've talked
about. My family's in Puerto Rico and my mother came to this country and two months later
I was born. We lived in Springfield, Massachusetts, so up north.
When I grew up and got married we moved a little further north, about 30 minutes. I
was always near family. I was always near family. By that time I was faculty at the
University of Massachusetts in Amherst. I loved what I did because I always loved working
with people so it was just yet another way that I worked with people.
When the opportunity came to come to NIH it was the first time, in many ways, I had left
home and I am grown and married. I remember being really nervous and told my mother, "Ma,
I think I'm going to take this," but I had never really moved away. My message in sharing
that is it can happen at any age.
My mom was very supportive. Of course you have to do that. What a great opportunity.
Then I could breathe because I think that it was OK. We came here and loved being in
this area. As I said earlier, we've decided to stay. It was very different coming from
the north east; coming down a little further but we're thrilled that we did it. It was
a wonderful experience to be here.
Richard: Wonderful. I'm not sure if you mentioned it but we've got representation from University
of Puerto Rico, North Carolina, Central University. What was yours?
Dr. Goba: I graduated from a really small college in Springfield, Massachusetts called
American International College and that's where I got my undergraduate degree but then
I got my graduation degree from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Flagship University,
by the way. We have five campuses but they are Flagship.
Richard: Everyone has mentioned their education and I'm trying to highlight that a little
bit because it sounds like the college years were very instrumental in your development
and helping you get on the current path that you're on. Is there any insight that you might
want to share to a high school senior who might be getting ready to finish their last
year of high school or even a college freshman who's getting ready to begin college, any
tips or insight that you may want to share that helped you along the way?
Dr. Lawrence: Yes, many of them. The first one that comes to my mind is that every graduation
is a turning point. You have many choices and you don't know what you're going to do.
So explore them and look for what truly is the best choice for you. We all get confused
at that point. High school, what am I going to do? I know I wanted to go to college.
If I may add, I had a friend that was trying to get into college and she said I want to
be a nurse, she actually said. I just said, "So what's preventing you?" "Well, I'm scared
of blood." I said, "You'll get over it. What else is preventing you from going to college
and studying nursing?" It's like, "Well, I don't have any money." I said, "You go to
my house on Saturday and I help you fill out applications," because there was financial
aid at the time. There's still financial aid.
She said, "Let me think about it," and, pleasantly surprised, she showed up at my house on Saturday.
We just filled out the forms and I said you're going to be so well because you're going to
qualify for these opportunities and you're going to get it and you're going to be able
to go to college. Things happen for a reason and I'm going to finish this story.
Years pass by, maybe eight years after, I saw her in the hospital working as a nurse
when I was with my grandmother. It happens that you help other people to complete applications
and help them get into science and sometimes it gets back to you, it gets back to the community.
Don't be afraid of turning points as a high school student, as a college student. Find
opportunities, find who can help you, and then teachers and faculty help the students.
I conducted some webinars on how to fill out applications to apply for internships at USDA
and we did nine of them and we really involved the faculty. Actually, we increased the number
of students applying from 60 Hispanic students to almost 600 students. We increased the number
of students taking advantage of this.
The federal government is looking for diversity, they're looking for minorities, and they're
looking for Hispanic Latino students. They're looking for you so my best advice is apply,
apply, apply, and then apply again. You will find your match, you will find your niche.
You can find a place so that you can do what you like and use your talents.
Commander Bailey: I'd like to piggy back on what you said. I think it's excellent advice
because a lot of times we don't know exactly what it is that we want to do. I think just
hearing these three stories today and letting you know what it is that's available out there,
and this is just a small piece of it. In the sciences, we still have pharmacists, we have
dieticians, and we have so many other fields of study and professionals that are in the
science category.
I think also just looking, searching the web. The world is literally at the tip of our fingers
now. Searching the web and seeing if these are some of your interests so that you can
embark on them and then also looking for good mentorship. I think that's really important,
especially at the high school senior level. Even before them. Freshman level. You can
find a good guide to let you know what they've done to be successful. I'd like to add that
piece to it. Seek out a good mentor.
Richard: Commander Bailey, the fact that you're currently in uniform today, I wonder if that
is something that initially maybe you felt limited in terms of your options. I'm not
sure how you feel about fashion and style, but does the uniform provide you with different
options? Can you switch it around a little bit? How does that work?
Commander Bailey: Actually, we do. We have several uniforms. This is a summer white,
but it's not a limitation at all. It's almost an expression of what I do. I'm providing
a service to my country. It's not a uniform that I wear 24 hours seven days a week. I
can let my hair down at the end of the day so I have the best of both worlds, again.
I wear uniform during my normal duty hours and I wear my normal clothes the remainder
of my time.
It's just an awesome feeling to know I'm doing something, again, to help someone. Somebody
might not even know what I do as a daytime job but when they see me in uniform they automatically
know that I'm providing a service.
Richard: Wonderful. Wonderful. Dr. Goba.
Dr. Goba: You've touched upon something that's really, really near and dear to my heart and
that's mentoring. I want to encourage people, first of all, to understand the difference
between a mentor and a role model. We're friends now so I can use my friend. I can look at
Captain Bailey and say, "I want to wear a uniform and I want to do what she does." You
aspire.
You see it, you want to imitate it, and the key word here is imitate. A mentor is a very
different relationship and oftentimes people get those two roles confused. A mentor is
somebody who really has your best interest at heart. It's an intellectual exchange of
ideas. I've been mentoring for a long, long time. I hope to continue until the day I take
my last breath because I think it's such an important part of that giving back.
Anybody who works with me, one of the phrases they know, they actually go out talking and
use it, "To whom much is given, much is expected." This idea of mentoring, that mentoring is
this really incredible relationship that you develop with an individual. In the olden days,
we'd say you need one mentor. Now we say one person can't meet all of your needs so find
mentors who really take an interest in you.
I shared in some presentation that I mentored people I never even meet face to face and
yet they get through a doctoral program. There's that commitment. I've been fortunate to be
able to mentor in many capacities and I just love doing it because, to me, that's another
way of serving. You help others that come along.
I've mentored young folks. I have two high school students I'm working with right now.
I've mentored people a lot older as well and everybody in-between. Because, for me, mentoring
is such a personal thing, I make myself available in many different ways. If somebody needs
me outside of my work hours then we're talking outside of work hours because it's about what
meeting that person's need, whatever that need may be.
I love that Dr. Lawrence is talking and it's like oh yeah, she's talking about peer mentoring.
It's something that when you're younger or a novice at mentoring that you take others
and you show them what it is that you've done. As recent as yesterday, we have a student
in our office and I have a student I've been working with the past couple of weeks and
I looked at him and said, "Your job now is to peer mentor her."
He looked at me and smiled because, believe it or not, young people, other people at different
ages, like being a mentor. If you mentor them, you show them how it's done correctly, the
right way to do it, then they take that skill set and they build it upon others.
I recently last week had somebody in my office. She's in high school. She is a senior and
she looked at me, she goes, "You mean that what I really need to start doing now is finding
a mentor, somebody who will guide me through?" I said, "Absolutely." People oftentimes think
that because I'm a nurse I only mentor nurses and, actually, most of the people that I've
worked with, especially in what we call baccalaureate positions and post-baccalaureate that we offer
at the NIH, have actually been students who've gone on to medical school.
I'm so pleased to say that one of them just graduated in June from medical school. Five
years later, because she was with me for a year, did a four year medical school. We're
still connected. Ask the person the question how long are you willing to mentor me? When
I work with people, when I mentor people, I tell them the option is yours. It could
be for the time that we're working together or it could be a lifetime, anything in-between.
Whatever you need, that's what I'm willing to do.
It's such an important piece. If you take any gems away from today's presentation, find
those people. Don't be afraid to go up to people because people like to help. Monday
I had somebody in my office who had been at a presentation that I had done a few months
ago and she said I'd really like to do my practical, which is something that we do in
our nursing department, I'd like to come and do my practicum at your school. It's just
so meaningful to me. She just finished that.
She's sitting there thinking I need to talk to her, I need to talk to her, but her friend
is saying no, go to a faculty member. I just found this out Monday. I had talked to her
several months ago and started the process. She felt something and she trusted her instinct
and said let me go and talk to Migdalia. It just happened to be me, but it really is all
of us.
People will just be willing and open to take that step to help. It's not, per se, my job
description, but that's another way that I think I serve the American people. For example,
I'm here today in DC but I had met with Glorimar Maldonado who was the person who started the
discussion today and she recently met a young student in college. She referred that student
to me. I'm here today. That student is at NIH in a shadow experience. How cool is that?
Everything I've asked him to do he's done. I've never met this student and I thought
I was going to meet him but I realized it wasn't going to work today but I hope to meet
him, but that's OK. We have email, we have telephone, we have all these other mechanisms
that we can stay in touch with one another.
Richard: The mechanisms that you mention are very important in terms of falling into that
category of technology within the STEM acronym. How important or how relevant would you say
that technology has been in your day to day work in your respective agencies within the
federal government?
Dr. Lawrence: I'm just reading on my notes that information technology jobs will increase
by 24 percent between 2006 and 2016. It's growing and I have here that the Department
of Labor's last year's information said that 15 out of the 20 fastest growing occupations
require significant science and mathematics training to complete the job.
In my job every day, I collect data about the activities I do, I use technology. I just
had a student intern, we're using his IT skills to accurately collect data and do it faster
and more efficiently and sort and produce information and then find conclusions and
findings.
The way we report the funding that we have, we have a team of programmers that program
the computer and they build us software programmers customized to the grants programs that we
have. IT is incredible. IT technology and webinars has allowed me to contact the students
and the faculty I work with on a person to person basis.
I don't have to travel there but they can see me, I could talk to them. Sometimes they
don't have to see me, they see the PowerPoint, and we can communicate. It has allowed me
to better network and improve my efficiency and the efficiency of the agency.
As we work with public and we provide information and food and what to do, what not to do on
farming, et cetera, et cetera, technology facilitates that in a great way. Who would
imagine that I would be talking to all of you, so many of you, in one hour in just probably
a 10 minute walk from my office.
Technology is great. It allows us to do more, more efficiently, if we use appropriately.
Commander Bailey: I think technology is just a way of the future now. I think I've mentioned
earlier we have programs and degrees in nursing informatics. I know that there's a big way
to move towards electronic patient medical records. That's just a small piece of how
things just want to grow. It matters. IT matters.
Dr. Goba: I agree with what my colleagues just said. It does matter and it's important.
It's sped up work. It makes a different in many different ways. I think it's best used
when it's used in conjunction with many people. What I mean is I don't mind using those mechanisms
but I still will pick up the phone and call people.
I actually was in a situation last week that I had to share some information and I said
I'm not going to email this, I'm going to pick up the phone and I'm going to talk to
the person. They were so thankfully. They said this was much easier to hear because
you took the time to pick up the phone and talk to me. I'm Puerto Rican, I'm Hispanic,
and I understand. I'm sure many of you may not what I'm about to say, but we're about
people, we're about talk, we're about connecting, we're about community building.
Yes, we need to use all that stuff and it's all important, but I encourage us not to forget
that relationship building that can't always occur in the same way as it can by people
still connecting with one another.
Richard: Outstanding. Very good point. The human component is definitely something that,
within the federal government, we spend a lot of time focused on that, particularly
with activities like this to try and inspire the future generation. Right now, this week,
at NASA, we're going to have some very exciting things taking place regarding the planet Mars.
We've got our rover named Curiosity that is going to be controlled by an individual at
one of our NASA facilities in the same manner some of you are playing in your various video
games right now. Maybe some of you are on the DS or the Vita. I'm not even sure. I'm
just learning about a lot of these things. I've got two five year old boys who were ready
to start a roaring rumble over the DS. I'm still learning myself.
It's definitely very important that we balance, moving into the future that our young people,
you all, are able to balance your interests and passion for utilizing technology, but
also make sure you keep your people skills up. It's very important that you are able
to have a conversation with someone, look someone in the eyes, explain the things that
you're interested in, and be able to obtain the information that's being presented, particularly
as it relates to what Dr. Goba mentioned regarding mentorships.
I had the opportunity about two summers ago to mentor a young lady, a Spellman college
student by the name of Tyler Davis. Outstanding student. We needed a new website to be built
for the recruitment side of the house and I gave her the instructions. We didn't have
a whole lot of communication that was required.
Three weeks later, this sophomore, she's now a senior, she created this web page in three
weeks, something that I didn't expect. I knew she was going to be there for about 10 weeks
and I had hoped by the ninth week we'd at least have something to work with, but after
three weeks she just blew us away.
This website is the website that NASA uses at the Goddard Space Fly Center as our recruiter
web page and it was built by a young lady from Prince Georges County Maryland who, as
I said before, is a Spellman student with a dual degree program in computer engineering
and computer science.
The possibilities out there for you all, they're just endless. Something that can start as
something that's really small, a small passing fantasy or a small interest, can blossom into
a career, as it may have in some of your cases.
Curious to know if the things going on at your agency are impacted by any of the things
going on with the global political spectrum. When we have presidential elections every
four years, are there any changes that you've noticed in your time that have taken place
at your respective agencies under new administrations or new presidents?
Commander Bailey: None that I can go into specifically. Not for me.
Dr. Lawrence: I'm trying to think. I think for a career person, you are employed. For
a political appointee it might be different, but as a career person of the federal government,
my job continues and I continue to do the best I can. And I look for the outcomes. And
the agency's mission, we support the agency's mission. We respond to problems in hurricanes
and tornadoes and things like that, but otherwise, we are fairly stable. Most of the staff is
careered, so we're good.
Richard: So presidents come and go, but our agencies pretty much stay...stay where they
are.
Dr. Goba: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Commander Bailey: Yes.
Dr. Goba: Because it's about...in our situation, it's about the patient, and you know, we're
not going to change care based on any of that.
Dr. Lawrence: And for example, I just said USDA just is celebrating its 150th anniversary.
I mean, that was before cassette players and eight tracks and all these things, and many
of you don't even know what they are. [laughter] So we have been going and going, and the purpose
and the mission has changed the conditions. And the problems we have to address change,
but we're still...we're still going strong, and we'll...facilitating and moving forward
our objectives.
Dr. Goba: And I'd like to respond to something you said, because you said something really
important about accessing and coming to NIH. And as you were talking, the thought that
occurred to me is that the reality is that we have...well, to the government in general,
but I'm sure it's also said at the other agencies. We have, at NIH, even within the clinical
center, X amount of positions for students, for training, for all that. If somebody applies
and they don't get in the first time, please don't let that deter you.
Sometimes when I talk to young people, "Well, that means it didn't work. I didn't know."
No, it just means that sometimes you don't even know why you weren't selected. I encourage
you, if you try once and you aren't able to go into the program or whatever training that
you want, just keep trying.
Don't give up, because I think it's almost like, "Well, if I didn't get in, I wasn't
supposed to. That's not for me, and they don't want me." No, it could be a lot of different
reasons. If you apply and the first response is no, please try. Please continue trying.
Richard: We definitely have covered a lot throughout the course of this morning's presentation.
Hopefully, you all have taken outstanding notes.
Hopefully, if any of you are in an environment where you may be watching this in the classroom,
give your teachers a special shout out. Give them some appreciation. Let them know that
you're listening and that you value their time and energy, because teachers, they're
really hard-working individuals. They really do have your best interests at heart. Let's
keep that in mind when you go back to school.
Before we close the panel, I just wanted to put a last opportunity for anything that we
may not have touched on, if there's anything anyone wanted to add regarding their time
in the federal government. Feel free to contribute that info.
Dr. Lawrence: Two things. To the students, take charge of your life. Do something. Go
to the Internet, go to the library, ask your teacher. Ask and you shall receive.
The other thing is to the teachers and the faculty. There are opportunities out there
for you to improve yourself, to do better for the students, and to help the students.
And it always takes an extra step and maybe staying an extra hour or maybe thinking about
it while you're driving home.
But the students appreciate it and the country needs it. We need to move our students forward
because I personally want to make sure that the farmers have everything they need, the
ranchers have everything they need, that they have the best food supply in the future and
we have the best nurses and the best services of everything because when I retire I want
to have great nurses that are going to take care of me when I need it.
So we are building the future for us and for our children. So take the extra step. People
think that one person cannot make a difference. You can see how our colleagues here are making
the difference one student at a time, one person at a time.
That you are a student in college does not mean that you cannot help others. So leadership
and taking the steps. If you see that problem, you could find a solution.
Commander Bailey: I would like to say that I have enjoyed my career as a nurse, but it
may not be for everyone. There are other opportunities that you can serve in as a commissioned co
officer.
So I like to make students aware of the website that they can look at now. It's www.usphs.gov.
And if nursing you don't think will fit your needs, find out all of the other professional
categories that we have that are available to you.
It's definitely something that you will just want to begin to just be inquisitive about
and to look into it at this point in your life so that you have a bright future and
care for your family as well as care for others one day.
Richard: So far we've got a couple of websites, just want to make sure you have those. Nasa.gov,
usda.gov, usps.gov, and...
Commander Bailey: Nih.gov.
Richard: ...nih.gov. So make sure you jot those down.
Commander Bailey: I'm sorry. It was usphs.gov.
Richard: Usphs.gov. Thank you.
Commander Bailey: Yes, sir.
Dr. Goba: One of the things I'd like to share with you is I have this comic strip that I
use a lot because I just think that it's so telling. It's a Christmas tree, and this little
girl is trying to put these ornaments on this Christmas tree.
She does the lower level. She's a little girl. Then she looks up because she can't get up
there. You can see that she had no idea was to do. Then, this male walks in the room,
and I'm not sure if it's a dad, or an uncle or a grandpa, but somebody. This male walks
in the room. He picks her up, raises her and she's able to put that ornament on.
I use that comic strip in my presentations to say that we all need help. We all need
help. What we have to do is ask. Whether it's the students, whether it's faculty, whether
it's administrators.
I've been doing this a long time, and I still have mentors. People get, "You have a mentor?"
Yeah, yeah. I have mentors, because none of us ever really knows it all. We need others
to support one another.
I also want to share that we have a couple of programs at NIH that might be of interest.
We have what we call the Summer Internship Program. This is where students, similar to
what you were saying, come to the summer for 10 weeks. They're selected early on. The application
process opens in November and ends March 1st, I believe.
We have another program under the Summer Internship Program that's called the Community College
Enrichment Summer Program. It parallels the traditional IRTA, the Summer Internship Program,
but focuses specifically on students who are in community colleges.
We have other different programs that if you go on the website and you just explore where
there's funding to finish your second, your third or fourth year of college, then you
come work with us during the summer.
There are a lot of different ways, but there's no way you're going to know all that. You
can surf, and you can do all that, but feel free to call us, to ask us, because we are
there to serve you.
Another program that I mentioned that also comes under our training program is called
the Post Baccalaureate IRTA, Intramural Research Award Program. That's a program when you finish
college, if you're not sure what you want to do or you want to explore something differently,
you can work aside an investigator or different people in different categories for about a
year. That's a paid position, as well.
There are a lot of opportunities. Just like people don't know that we have a hospital
at NIH, there are a lot of other things that we have that people don't know. We welcome
people to come and visit, to come and ask questions all the time.
Richard: Wonderful. Just wanted to leave you all with some inspiration. Everyone here represents
their family, or they represent their town that they're from. We're not very close to
where we came from. We're in the D.C. area and we've come from different places across
the US. But at some point in our lives, we decided to chase our dreams.
It's very important that you continue to chase your dream. You can be sitting in Mississippi
right now, and you could come from a family that doesn't have a whole lot. But if you
have the desire and the commitment to go out and chase your dreams, you could be a doctor.
You could be a nurse. You could be a scientist. You could be anything that you really put
your mind to being.
These jobs, these opportunities with the federal government, they're going to be here. Just
really wanted to close with the importance of making sure that you stay focused on your
goals and pursue your dreams. We really hope you were able to obtain some great information
today and we look forward to seeing you guys next time on the Summer School Roundtable.