Monday, June 11, 2012

One of the skills each of you is evaluating during your experience this summer is that of problem-solving. Different organizations approach problem-solving using different methods. Some prefer a team approach, while others assign individuals to evaluate a problem. In fact, there are probably as many methods of solving problems as there are problems to solve.

In your comments, please share an example of one method of problem-solving you have seen used in your current internship. While maintaining confidentiality and a positive frame of mind, what have you learned about effective problem-solving through your work or observations?

17 comments:

  1. I actually start my internship tomorrow however I have already had to problem solve with the issue of parking. There is extremely limited parking in Atlanta. I had to find a place close to my building where I could park and pay a monthly fee. When I asked about the parking situation I was basically told to look around for parking. Which to me indicates that the organization is looking for self motivated people who can problem solve independently.I did exactly that and found parking and already have the permit so that tomorrow I can drive directly there and park so I can then walk across to my building and show up on time for my internship!

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  2. A problem that I recently was a part of at my workplace was how to lift a body that is 6 foot, 6 inches long and weighs 300 lbs out of the cooler and onto the autopy table. Normally this task is carried out by just the pathologist and his assistant, but since the body was so large it took four of us to lift it on the table for the post-mortem exam. Teamwork really triumphed here! While working in the pathology department, I've learned how much teamwork pays off in any situation that requires effective problem solving. This can even mean using the skills of those employees who work in other departments of the hospital to effectively handle the task at hand (i.e. radiology technicians taking an x-ray of a body to help the pathologist locate multiple bullets/shrapnel within a victim's body). Yes, we've done that too.

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  3. A problem that I recently faced at the office I am interning with is converting spreadsheets from old to new formats. My boss wanted me to make the form easier to manage and wanted the computer to lay everything out whereas to eliminate the possibility of human error. The problem was trying to figure out how to go about completing this task. Luckily for me, I have taken Dr. Tarbert's Excel class and knew exactly what to do and how to do it. Therefore, with a 100+ character equations and a spreadsheet from A-AD with seven tabs, I was able to create a working spreadsheet that not only calculated all insurance numbers needed but also created the forms that they would later need to print out. I felt very accomplished.

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  4. In a hospital, there are obviously many problems: otherwise a patient wouldn't come into the hospital in the first place. From a doctor's point of view, there are even more problems: not only how to treat a patient's condition, which comes with practice, but how to treat a patient. What I mean by that is that often times, the patient has certain aspects about them that make them difficult to treat. I have been told repeatedly that there is disease and there is dis-ease. Meaning, a patient can be genuinely sick, or just seeking attention for various reasons. Obviously a doctor must be skeptical of the patients intention. One major problem is that patients can fake symptoms: and I have learned that some people even try to fake strokes. The best way I have observed to solve this is to compromise. Give a little medicine, say encouraging words to suggest to the patient that their "illness" will be over soon, and try to send them home quickly without major testing or drug abuse. With these problems comes some risk which, in each case, must be carefully considered. This is just one of many problem solving skills necessary in a Hospital environment.

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  5. One problem I encountered during my internship was the placement of patients on the joint center floor. Because having a joint replaced is such an invasive procedure, the hospital takes extra precautions to keep the rate of infection low in the center. However, a few patients who were not joint patients were placed on the floor and were positive for MERSA causing them to be contact patients. This meant that whenever any person entered the patient's room he or she had to wear a disposable gown which helped prevent carrying the infection to other patients. The problem that had to be solved was getting those infected patients out of the joint center so they did not cause any unwanted infections. It took a little time to find another room in the hospital for the patients, but the problem was solved and no infections were reported.

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  6. A problem that I have experienced during my internship at the hospital is doctor's management of time and also how to properly weigh the different priorities of numerous tasks that must be completed. Often, especially with a physician who practices in a "one-man" group or practice, some tasks must wait longer than others before they are completed. I recently experienced this as the doctor I was shadowing finished a surgery and had to immediately tend to another emergency before going to speak to the patient's family whose surgery he had just completed. Although both of these were important tasks, someone was going to have to wait while more serious cases were completed. The ability to weigh the importance of certain tasks over others seems to be paramount in the medical field as there are often emergencies that take priority over all.

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  7. During my time at VIB Systems I have had to pay close attention to my boss, because I didn't want him to keep repeating himself. He had showed me how to test a piece of machinery using a device he had made earlier in the summer and now I had to use it to test AC and DC circuit boards. There were two different ways to set up the machine based on if you are using AC or DC. If I set up the wrong testing configuration then I would blow up the circuit boards and the testing machine. Problem was that I had only seen him set up the testing machine once and was unsure if I had done it right or not. So I went and found some old circuit boards that were labeled AC and DC and were not needed and tested the configurations on them. Turns out that my configuration was correct for the AC boards and also for the DC boards.

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    Replies
    1. Grayson, it sounds like you had a lot of responsibility with those circuit boards. After your massive success, did they give you more responsibilities? If so what were they?

      I also want to know if you will be applying these great new critical thinking capabilities to the tennis court...?? I am excited to see.

      Brighamio.

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    2. Yeah man! They told me to created back planes for the circuit boards and then connected that to the control panel so you could send information to the circuit boards.

      Oh yeah just wait boss ;)

      Graysonthio

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  8. At my internship my boss was constantly having me send out tedious e-mails with obseen amounts of attached word documents that were obnoxious to send and probably far more obnoxious for the recipient. He asked me if there was any possible way to send out those files without having to go through and individually attach twenty or thirty different file, so I found out how to create and send a compressed file.

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  9. Hello All (Didn’t know you had an internship Grayson!)
    I have had to problem solve every day because the investment team use a lot of terminology I don’t understand but I pretend I do. I then have to go away and learn what they said and only then begin working on tasks. In the past, I would have asked my supervisor up front if I didn’t understand but after listening to the PC alum. who came to speak (forgot her name) I understand there are stupid questions so I try to answer them any way I can before asking someone else.

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    1. that's commitment! .... is Snead blogging?

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  10. One problem I have seen handled in a very professional manner is with the sales team. There is a new segment that is being aired on WLOS called "Road Trippin'" and unfortunately some of the information about this segment was explained poorly to some of the sales members that are selling the spots. I watched one of the sales people have to call a business that they had recently sold a spot to and explain to them the additional fees that they failed to tell their account about, she did this in an extremely apologetic way and even gave the account of opt out if they wanted to. The way she handled this is such an honest manner helped her actually keep the account. I've overheard other phones calls like this with the sales team and I believe their honesty really helps them when it comes to solving the problem.

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  11. A problem I encountered while working the kids self esteem camp was figuring out what each child needed individually and helping them work well with others. It was really hard to help each child individually when they are all so unique and have different needs. As counselors we had to work together and identify what each child needed and use the resources we had to help each child. I loved getting to see the progress the children made throughout the week!

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  12. A problem I have encountered while working with the youth at MPPC is finding ways to contact them and get them all in one place at one time. This has been a struggle because other then Sunday school during the first few weeks I would not see the youth. We have a list of 200 youth but only 50 are active so I attempted to find all 200 youth on Facebook to send them a message inviting them to meet me for ice cream. I ended up messaging random people that did not even attend our church. As my time here has continued I have had time to get to know the youth and build lasting relationships.
    Hanna Crosby

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  13. The problem that occurred with my intern happens to deal with flight plans. Since I am the intern for Men's Basketball operations they had me plan out the schedules for certain travel situations. It was tough to get everything from charter buses, meals, hotels reservations, and more in a certain time span that wont conflict with our the flight times. My advisor seen that I was struggling and showed me a simple way of handling conflict.
    -Khalid Mutakabbir-

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