Internship Reflection Report

Working as Research Analyst for School of Psychology and Public Health, Latrobe University

Table of Contents

Executive summary

Introduction

About the internship

Objectives

Scope

Reflection

Initial days

Understanding

Benefits

Spot the workplace

Finding placement experience

Cultural characteristics of the Australian workplace

Challenges

Professionalism

Conclusion

References

This report recounts my experience as a Research Analyst Intern in school of Psychology and Public Health. My internship with them has given me a broad understanding of Medicare benefits scheme and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. The visualization and analysis of   dataset helps us to predict weather a customer will choose a PBS or an MBS scheme. Internship has certainly fulfilled its objective to encourage the principles of International Corporation.

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The School Of Psychology and Public Health is one of the teaching Department’s at Latrobe University and offers wide range of Undergraduate and postgraduate courses with the aim of understanding human behaviour and well-being of individuals, groups and communities through excellence in teaching and research. There is also a dedicated research centre conducting research at the forefront of their respective fields. 

The server has many datasets but we are using a dataset which contains data regarding customers who use both PBS (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) and MBS (Medicare Benefits Scheme). This dataset contains line data of 10% of patients that have used the Medical Benefits Scheme (MBS) or the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) between the years of 1984-2014. PBS &MBS are the core of Australia’s Universal healthcare. The data was generated by specialists, allied health, pharmacies and by other health service. This data is under control and maintained by Australian Government Department of Health.

Data from health dataset was imported by Dennis Wollersheim into a database along with reference tables. In total these database contains a total of 15 tables which gives us information about customers, what kind of treatment and service they needed and what kind of benefits they are using. The database is accessible in university through a remote server.

In his project we did use R-Studio online for data analysis, basic visualisation done using GGplot package of Rstudio we did perform data classification by implementing an SVM classifier to predict weather a customer will choose PBS or an MBS for a given service. We did implement other classifier models like decision trees and KNN and compare its accuracy and performance with the SVM model. I also performed data visualisation on the healthcare dataset using TABLEAU and did generate some interesting graphs which explains the trends of customers who choose medical benefit scheme which best suits them.

Overall we found out that there 2 different group of customers who use the medical benefit scheme. In one group there are customers who either have a Medicare benefit scheme or Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, while in another group we see that there are customers who have both PBS and MBS scheme.

Introduction

About the internship

I was working as an intern at School of Psychology and public health at La Trobe University, Bundoora. The principal focus of the internship was to research the health dataset and generate meaningful insights based on the data analysed. This report gives an overview of the qualitative analysis of Health Datasets. Being part of the workforce is a great opportunity to put all of my academic training and knowledge.

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The department provides a very healthy professional work environment with an open door policy that encourages employees to work in healthy friendly and helpful environment. Consequently, working as a research analyst at School of Psychology and public health is a great experience, because I have a chance to deal with large amount of data in database, using Rstudio online we extract and filter the data. I was assigned to produce multiple data visualizations for a clear understanding of the data. The goal of the project is to deal with large amount of data and extract useful insight’s  about the various benefit schemes and to know when customers use these schemes for which diseases and services.

This internship has enabled me to apply my knowledge, ideas and theories. Furthermore it allowed me to develop my skills to grow as a long-term researcher, learner and practitioner in a professional environment. I did gain an elaborate understanding of health organization needs practices and its culture.

By doing this internship I have tried to use my theoretical knowledge and apply it practically on the health dataset obtained.to analyse and process the healthcare dataset I tried to understand MBS and PBS schemes  and how customers use this scheme for a particular disease or service.

Able to:

Generate strategies for problem solving, analysis and decision making. These strategies incorporate different views of the dataset and the data

Demonstrate effectiveness in organizing, articulating ideas and information in writing and orally.

Demonstrate effectiveness in working individually, as a part of team and, listening, and giving response effectively.

Articulate, have a moral behaviour within the work environment and model professional skills.

The scope of the internship is strictly confined to Analysis and process the health dataset information. Data analysis is done through the online Rstudio server.

Initial days

During my work experience at La Trobe. I had first-hand experience and learned, many different sides of a project, the general process of how a project is planned, developed completed and deployed in the work environment. In every stage of work, that is done or needs to be done .I have learned a valuable lesson during the internship and understood what are the different types of roles and responsibilities that I could perform, as research Analyst.

Reflecting back to my first day at La Trobe, it was one of the most memorable days of my time at work. Catherine, supervisor gave me a warm welcome and introduced to everyone. I was handed a tender to work on, in which they had asked me for recommendations to improve certain aspects of the project whatever I see fit, as well as my opinions on the project as an entirely. The teammates are very friendly and helpful. They were open to give suggestions and ideas. This instantly made feel comfortable and definitely made me feel as though I was part of the team.   

During the first week of work completing the tender, I was overwhelmed by the work and

the responsibilities that were placed on me, but with the help of my supervisors, who have had years of experience in the industry, I felt more confident and supported as I knew my work would be double checked and any uncertainties were explained. By observing and learning from them, I managed to pick up tips and learned different types of skills, from learning to communicate and deal with other companies, to reading and deciphering many different types of plans.

Supervisor

Dennis Wollersheim, a senior professor at LaTrobe University, is my supervisor for data analyst internship. He is very helpful and friendly, always makes me feel comfortable to work well and appreciate my work. He inspires, motivates and encourages me at work and gives suggestion and idea to fix the issues.

Understanding

I understand the different organizations that have different atmospheres, different ways of doing things, different attitudes and different values. I always refer these aspects of the workplace as workplace culture.

Benefits

The benefits of understanding workplace culture assists with transition into the workplace, develops strategies to improve effectiveness in the workplace, improve employment or placement prospects, allow to perform more effectively in assigned tasks, help to alleviate culture shock and develop professional skills.

Spot the workplace

The way I do things around here at La Trobe is first try to find information about the dataset, perform analysis on the dataset, observe analysis results, and share my results with my supervisor for cross-referencing.

Finding placement experience

The work that I had done on the dataset which was required to be completed on time varied day‐to‐day. There are some days that is very busy and stressful to point where I had to stay back to get the work done because of urgent requirements and deadlines.

Cultural characteristics of the Australian workplace

The Australian workplace culture has a different blend of cultural characteristics which gives us the idea about different hierarchy, leadership, communication, collaborative, occupational health and safety, focus is on equal opportunities for everyone.

I tend to complete the tasks independently with minor managerial supervision and respect the work process workflow. Form this industrial placement, I have learned about the importance of collaboration and communication in the work place. I applied skills into achieving the goal by Contributing ideas, perspectives and opinions that managed to bring out the best in solving the problem. From a student mind-set, I did not put in too much effort on communication and through this experience, I realised the importance of communication in working as a team. Interacting well and voicing out opinions are crucial relating to a great outcome.

My written communication is always professional in tone and style that should be open and direct. I interact to staff are often asked for their opinions and feedback by supervisor. 

Challenges

The most challenging thing during this internship that I have to voicing out opinions. All these while I have never take that as a weakness. Through I have my own stand on certain concept but I had trouble when it comes to facing a team of people. This is important to put your idea in front of others. Therefore, I am willing to turn this weakness of mine into strength. I put extra effort to develop myself.

Professionalism

I could definitely see myself as a professional person. I represent myself and Unitemps in meeting with clients or other external professional. I learn to show my ability to accept personal responsibility for decisions and actions. I use professional dress codes to represent well.  

Overall, my work experience at Unitemps is positive. I am very happy with the amount of things that I have learned and experienced till week 9. Being part of UniTemps, give me a different perspective on the role of Data analyst. While a data analyst will also analyse existing data to answer business problems, they will also collaborate on more strategic data projects. The experience that I have gain from working as a data analyst is very educational and professional. In addition, working for the company show me variety of tasks that I could handle and make report. I fulfil the requirements and give the appropriate solution. Managed internal database, provided statistical analysis report for the general household team. Successfully identified multiple data issues and helped with their resolution. I am so happy, and proud that I have about to complete my course after finishing this internship.

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Geithner, S., & Menzel, D. (2016). Effectiveness of learning through experience and reflection in a project management simulation. 47(2), 228-256.