Tooting my own Horn

I don't often talk about my Masters degree in any detail. For some reason I don't talk about it as much as I want to. I generally discuss it in very broad terms or tend to gloss over the work I am doing. I think it is because I worry about boring people, inciting arguments over politics, or sounding like I am on a high horse. Secretly, I could talk about health equity and Population Health all day. Yesterday, I had my chance.

Months and months ago, I did a practicum with Vancouver Coastal Health. I created a toolkit for health care teams to use so they can learn about the social factors that affect health and what they could do to create more health equity. I thought it was a pretty important project and thus, decided to apply to do a poster presentation at the International Conference on Urban Health. For those of you who aren't familiar withe doing poster presentations, it is essentially a grown up version of show and tell except with a large poster that describes what you did. I was accepted and yesterday I was able to present my toolkit at the conference. For 2 hours, I stood by my poster and talked to other people that had the same passion for health equity I had. I was so excited to talk with like minded people and share ideas. The even better part was that everyone was really interested in the work that I did. They wanted copies of the toolkit. I even had a sign up sheet of email contacts.

For the first time in a long while I felt really good about my choice to do this Masters degree. As my blog atests to, the journey has not always been easy. I was often filled with self doubt about my own capabilities and intelligence. Academia is not always kind to your self-esteem. Yesterday was the proverbial pat on the back that I needed as I head into the final stretch of this path in my life.