Rockwood Student Gains Hands-On Patient Care Experience Through PIE Summer Internship

Mahi Chechani is heading into her senior year at Lafayette High, and she already has a pretty clear idea of what she would like the future to hold.

She is interested in pursuing a career in the medical field and specializing in women’s health, with biology and genetics as other areas of interest. Just as importantly, she wants to pursue a career that aligns with her personal values.

“I want to be able to identify and carry my values with me throughout college and med school, or whatever path I choose, to make sure that I have that motivation and reasoning in mind wherever I go,” Chechani said. “If I am going to pursue health care in which I’m trying to take care of other people and attempting to better the lives of other people, I want to make sure I have my reasoning behind me with that.”

In all of these aspects, she has found a great match in her Rockwood Partners in Education (PIE) Summer Internship program mentor: Erin Beaver, a licensed genetic counselor at Missouri Baptist Medical Center.

The PIE Summer Internship program places students in a career area of their interest leading into their senior year of high school. The internship provides students with career exploration opportunities while allowing them to gain practical, real-world experience in a field of interest by partnering with business professionals.

In her role as a licensed genetic counselor, Beaver works with the breast health care and cancer care centers at Missouri Baptist to offer genetic testing guidance to patients. For patients who have cancer, genetic testing can help determine the most effective courses of treatment. For patients who do not, testing can help determine hereditary risks of cancer and possible preventative steps.

As Chechani aspires, Beaver also keeps her personal values closely aligned with her professional practice.

“One of my values is about community. It’s really important to me to be contributing to my community and to be a part of an active community,” Beaver said. “Hosting students is contributing to my community in the sense of feeding into students, but it also is contributing to my professional community because I am feeding into students who will be the next generation. They’re probably going to go into the medical or research world, and I think that’s really important to contribute to the future generations of our profession.”

This is the fourth year Beaver has hosted a PIE intern. One of the previous interns, 2023 Lafayette graduate Abbi Stein, is also working at the clinic this summer and has been another important resource for Chechani during her internship. Beaver’s husband, Scott, is also a business teacher at Lafayette.

This summer, Chechani’s main duties have involved shadowing Beaver as she consults with patients. After, the two will have debriefing sessions to discuss the appointments and further flesh out some of the medical terminology that was used. Chechani has also tried her hand at taking family medical histories and helped with a literature review on schwannomas, which are normally benign nerve sheath tumors.

In her spare time, she’s also been researching genetic blood conditions and how technological capabilities in the field of genetics have been progressing. A member of Lafayette’s HOSA-Future Health Professionals chapter, Chechani attended the HOSA International Leadership Conference in Nashville, Tennessee, earlier this summer as a competitive event qualifier in Researched Persuasive Writing and Speaking.

“She has been wonderful. I see her taking this information and what she’s observing here in clinic and synthesizing it with some of her educational experiences,” Beaver said. “Plus, whenever we talk, that gives me new and fresh ideas. It’s her presence here that jogs new ideas, new thought processes and keeps the clinic fresh.”

Through this experience, Chechani said she has gained a renewed appreciation for the importance of psychology in patient care and interactions.

She’s now considering a psychology minor in college, just like Beaver did.

“I’ve learned a lot seeing the way she treats and talks to patients,” Chechani said. “It has added to what I aspire to be when I become any kind of health care professional. Being here has also opened up my eyes to the world of genetics and how it’s growing. She has definitely taught me a lot about not only the language used in a clinical space but also about patient care. We’ve had a lot of really good conversations about patient care, hospitals and health care as a whole.”