Biographies of the Interns, Summer 2003

Rachel Adamczyk
My name is Rachel Adamczyk. I am twenty years old and will be a junior at Northwestern University in Evanston this coming fall. I am majoring in History at Northwestern and hope to attend law school. At Northwestern, I am on the Special Olympics Executive Board and am the recording secretary for my sorority, Gamma Phi Beta. In my spare time, I enjoy horseback riding and spending time with my family and friends.

During this internship, I worked to organize and finalize The Center's website. First, I worked with the director and other interns in order to narrow the focus of this Center and to better define The Center's work. I then took those refined goals and edited, prepared and composed materials that reflected The Center's mission. These materials eventually developed into our gorgeous new website: www.healthcare-ethics.org.

In addition to my work on the website, I was hired as the supervisor of the younger interns. In this role, I helped our high-school interns clarify their research projects and I edited their work. I also delegated tasks and provided support when needed.

Lann Choi
My name is Lann Choi and I am an eighteen-year-old Korean American. I graduated from New Trier High School this past year (2003) and will be attending the St. Louis College of Pharmacy this fall. I enjoy reading, traveling, volunteering, photography and spending time with my friends and family. When I saw this internship posted at New Trier High School, I jumped at the opportunity to learn about my particular field of health care: pharmacy.

During my internship here at The Center, I focused on two main topics. Because of my future in pharmacy, I focused on pharmacy and drug related issues. First, I addressed the problems with Medicare. The ongoing debate and conflict over the newly proposed Medicare bill is an important issue in healthcare today. Because of the Medicare issue, and because the prices of prescription drugs are so high, there are many discount programs and cards available. I compiled data on these programs, and kept updates on Medicare. My other topic was pharmacy advocacy and ethics related issues. I researched topics ranging from new pharmacy bills to research with placebos. I compiled many articles and stories about these pharmacy-related issues.

Gabriela Lazcano
My name is Gabriela Lazcano. I am a seventeen-year-old Mexican American. I live with my mother on the northwest side of Chicago. I am currently enrolled at Josephinum High School where I will start my senior year this fall. At school, I am the Vice President of Student Council and am in the National Honor Society. I am also on the volleyball team. I want to major in psychology when I go to college.

At The Center, I worked a little on KidCare (an Illinois-based medical funding program for under-privileged children), but my main focus was researching mental illnesses. I thought it would be important for The Center to have a basic understanding and a basic database of the most common mental disorders. Some of the disorders I researched were: depression, anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, and panic disorders.

Borim Yang
My name is Borim Yang. I am nineteen years old and I came to the United States from South Korea two and one-half years ago to study. I go to Regina Dominican High School, which is in Wilmette, and I will be a senior this fall. I am in the National Honor Society at Regina, and my favorite subjects are chemistry and math. I have a strong interest in the health care field, and would like to become a dentist.

Because I came after school each day, my project was to re-organize all of The Center's files. The files were already organized according to the Library of Congress classification system (with the community files interwoven), but many of the files needed reclassification, and the entire directory needed to be updated.