Life as a GenomOncology Intern
After graduating in 2020 with majors in psychology and biological sciences, I was unsure of what job opportunity I wanted to explore before attending medical school. Through various biology courses in college, I learned a bit about precision medicine, but was interested in learning more about how it is used in the medical field. When the opportunity to intern at GenomOncology (GO) presented itself, I knew that it was an experience I had to pursue. I was particularly interested in working more closely with clinical trial documents, and was thus placed on the content team as a clinical genomics curator.
Over the past 11 months on the content team, I have had the opportunity to work on a variety of projects. During the first few months, my primary job was to “curate” clinical trials. My task was to translate the key clinical trial inclusion and exclusion criteria (such as cancer type treated, disease states eligible, and drugs used on the trial) into a format that our software could understand. The data is then used to help physicians match their patients to relevant clinical trials and therapeutic options. I still spend a portion of my time curating trials, but I have also had the opportunity to work on a variety of other projects, allowing me to expand my skill-set even further.
Earlier this year, I worked to improve our igniteIQ software’s extraction capabilities. igniteIQ is a solution that simplifies the extraction of clinically-relevant information from PDF documents and images to access discrete data for registries, analytics, and research. Now that my primary focus is working on igniteIQ documents, I am pleased to see that my work has increased the efficiency of extracting clinically-relevant data.
Working at GenomOncology has been an incredibly rewarding experience, as it is an environment that allows employees at any level to contribute and improve our solutions and services. Having the opportunity to work on a wide variety of projects has further sharpened my skill-set and has provided a unique experience. I now feel more confident sharing my ideas, working with excel documents, and communicating with my colleagues. All of my projects have required me to think critically and analytically, which I believe has prepared me for my future educational endeavors. Working in an environment that offers innovative solutions for precision oncology has shown me the exciting nature of the future of medicine. Additionally, I really enjoyed the seminars and presentations I attended while working at GO. These gave me the opportunity to learn more about oncology research, as well as the impact of precision oncology on patient outcomes.
This internship provided a wonderful opportunity to work on the software end of precision medicine. As someone who is interested in becoming a physician, it was rather impactful seeing how our software improves clinical decisions. I hope to continue to work in precision medicine in the future, as I believe it will become integral to patient care. I am so fortunate for my experience at GO, as it has allowed me to grow both personally and professionally. I know that GenomOncology has a bright future, and I cannot wait to watch the company expand!
Interested in learning more about careers at GO? Check out the open positions today.