Charlize Amper (‘28), a Biology major, researched ways to support pediatric cancer survivors with mentorship from Dr. Lisa Schwartz (Department of Pediatrics, CHOP). This research was supported by the Penn Undergraduate Research Mentoring Program.
My PURM research was focused on survivorship, celebrating the conquerors of childhood cancer, and working to help them stay happy and healthy. Specifically, I focused my project on the acceptability and implementation barriers of video education for tumor-normal paired genetic testing. I was drawn to this research because, as a hopeful pediatric medicine practitioner, I wanted to understand the current quality of pediatric health care and contribute to ways to improve the field.
The community in my lab was my favorite part of my summer. My office had multiple undergrads, research coordinators, research scientists, and Principal Investigators (PIs). I was lucky to form individual connections with many of these people. I loved joking around with other undergrads across our closely packed cubicles and having interesting conversations with my research coordinators, research scientist, and PI during our weekly lab meetings. From the beginning, everyone was welcoming and supportive, checking in on one another and encouraging each other to take breaks when needed. This showed that a healthy work environment could be both productive and fun.
Additionally, the biggest lesson I learned was that it's okay to make mistakes, even when the research is of great importance. It was daunting to work on NIH-funded projects for one of the best children's hospitals in the U.S. as a college student. My lab taught me that everyone is human at the end of the day. When we worked on tasks, several people would conduct multiple rounds of checks before finalizing anything. When mistakes were found, no one assigned blame, but rather we collectively worked to help fix the mistake. This approach has shaped the way I will look at my future academic career. What's important is to be responsible and productive when mistakes happen. You can never go back and change the past, but you can change what you do in the future. If I had the opportunity to start my summer again, I wouldn’t change a thing.
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