My name is Elsa Elvir, and I am a rising senior attending Research Triangle High School. I love reading as well as listening to music. In school, I lead a volunteering club because I like helping and giving back to the community. I also lead our Mental Health Club which is my favorite part of my week. It has become a safe place for a lot of the students attending RTHS. My school is a STEM base for raising future engineers. A lot of the programs that went out were about engineering summer camps and internships. I did a lot of research, and then I found ISHTaR, I was so excited about it and happy to spend time with people who have studied medicine because that’s what I want to do. What attracted me more to the internship was the book club. I love reading and getting to talk to people about what I’m reading. This summer we are reading “Ask Me Why I Hurt: The Kids Nobody Wants and The Doctor Who Heals Them by Randy Christensen,” I’ve only read a few chapters and I love it; I can’t wait to go back to school and tell my friends about it, we all love to read.

I recommend this program to people. If you have a school like mine that doesn’t provide information to kids who want to go into the medical field, I say take advantage of the program. You will learn a lot and sometimes we just know we want to do medicine but what specifically. I enjoy the research part of the internship and just getting to know more people as well as seeing my research play out; which made me more interested in helping out with why Spanish-speaking patients leave the EM room without being seen. I like how close I was able to get to the other interns and get to know so many other people who were so happy to share with us what they did as well as provide us with hands-on stuff that we are interested in.

Elsa’s Research Project Infographic:

Why do Spanish Speaking Patients Leave Without Being Seen Infographic