4 MONTHS AT GOLDEN COMMUNITY: AN EXPERIENCE BLOG

Having been involved with a wonderful organization ‘Golden Community’ in the past four months, my reflection on the learnings have been great. As a public health student, the most essential foundations in issues that impact population health and healthcare systems rely more on field-based knowledge than the theoretical basis. My time in Golden Community has provided me with an experience of working in a professional setting while closely observing the health system of Nepal through a public health perspective. In search of an organization that would help fulfill my curricular requirement, I approached Golden Community along with my academic partner.

The organization’s research activities and its work on maternal and child health had been an interesting field for us given our interest in the similar area. After screening among other applicants, we were selected to work as interns at Golden Community and the learning curve has been upward since the first day. We started with an orientation of the organization and its running projects and got the opportunity to be involved in each of them. We learned about different study methods like cohort study, intervention-based study, qualitative studies and more. Our placement at Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital, Thapathali provided us a great and unique experience of real-time data collection. We got an opportunity to learn about the administrative and management challenges of health system by observing the daily activities of hospital staff. We got introduced to quality improvement interventions through PDSA cycle and its relevance to improving the health system. Being a part of different trainings and programs, we got to observe how on-site and online (hybrid method) training methods are conducted. We also got an opportunity to learn manuscript writing process.

In addition to all the organizational activities, the staff and team members provided a safe and comfortable office space to work. Their friendly and welcoming nature helped us extend personal networks and relations as well. We always had the space to make mistakes which were guided and supervised by experienced team members and they provided us the space to express our curiosities. I also appreciate the overall efforts Golden Community is making in prevention of neonatal morbidities and mortalities. The evidence being generated at GC are great resources in producing key recommendations to Nepal’s health system improvement.

I am very grateful to the Golden Community team for welcoming me and giving me the opportunity. As I sit now to write about my experience, I realize the learnings have been more than what could have been articulated here. I hope I have been able to provide some contribution and support to the team during my stay as well. The learnings have definitely helped me gain confidence in the field of study I have chosen and has shown me the scope of public health. The overall experience has left me ever more curious and willing to learn.