This infographic is one I produced for the Center of Body Image Research & Policy as part of my practicum. While this was not an article I contributed to in writing, it is still a phenomenal work that highlights the role body image plays in some of our health behavior decision making! Do check it out if you get the chance!
Find the article on PubMed here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29305774
I created the following social media images to discuss myths about the postpartum body in efforts to improve postpartum body image among women. This project was completed as part of my final MSW practicum at the Center for Body Image Research & Policy in collaboration with Harmony Birth Services.
Probably NSFW
This past Spring Semester, I was given the honor of judging undergrad students’ models of reproductive anatomy for their Sexual Health Advocacy class. This course is one I never got to take myself, but I am very passionate about the lessons and the knowledge students take away from the course. Namely, they learn about the need for true comprehensive sex education and that sex education saves lives! Anyway, back to the fun part. The tools available to them? PLAY-DOH, PIPE CLEANERS, GOOGLY EYES, POMPOM BALLS, WASHI TAPE. To say the least, this was an extremely fun and extremely challenging event to judge! Models were judged based on accuracy, creativity, and inclusivity.
1. In this collage are the most creative winners! The female model included two parts in which you find the internal aspects of anatomy if you remove the vulva. There were mentions of Ronald McDonald on the male model…
I don’t think anyone ever wanted to image that part of Ronald McDonald…
2. Winners of “Most Medically Accurate Anatomy” included the many internal layers of female and male anatomy, some of which you had to see as the students were creating the models. Let’s just say the largest penis of them all was somehow the most medically accurate based on the inclusion of glans, vessels, ducts, foreskin, etc. in the model. And the female model was the only one that included endometrial lining, cervix, anus, and urethra in addition to the more commonly included parts. Yes, many excluded the anus and urethra and didn’t put the internal organs together with the otherwise visible external organs.
Lady over on the left liked to dye her pubes purple, but the poor fella only had one testicle remaining… he had a blue ball!
3. Honorable mentions on female reproductive anatomy from the day’s sexual health class! These students are really creative and it shows that Play-Doh is for all ages. Can you guess which one is my favorite? (HINT: green is my favorite color)
All in all, this was easily one of my favorite experiences in the classroom. I never had any formal sex education and very little knowledge about reproductive anatomy, so much so that I found a piece of paper on a classroom floor once where they were obviously teaching male anatomy in an earlier class that day…and I didn’t know half of what was on the sheet so I took it home to study it. I was 23. I was already convinced comprehensive sex ed was needed at that point, but this day of Play-Doh penises and vulvas really demonstrated that sex ed can save lives!
I knew last summer I not only wanted to stay in academia, but I needed to stay in academia. I was in my first practicum, the dual internship shared between the MSW and MPH programs. I was also recovering from surgery and attending physical therapy several times a week.
I was weak. I had major hip surgery in mid-January. I walked with crutches or a walker from January 17 to early May while I was relearning how to walk. My bone was healing, but the allergic reaction I was having to the stainless steel plate in my leg meant I wasn’t healing fast enough, I had open wounds that had to be kept clean and covered, my body was fighting the infection and allergy while still trying to detox the Percocet and anesthesia out of my body. How I managed to re-learn how to walk (with assistive devices) and go to physical therapy 2-3 times a week on top of frequent doctor visits all while being a full-time student with a teaching assistantship, I may never know. I do have my mother to thank for helping me get through the initial 6 weeks of complete non-weight bearing on one leg. With my mom, my surgeon, and the knowledge that I had this practicum to complete over the summer, I carefully selected the date for surgery #2. The second surgery isn’t supposed to happen for at least 12 months, but my inability to heal due to the metal allergy meant the plate had to come out much sooner. But it was ok. My bone healed more than expected for being only 4 months post-op on the major surgery. I should have been crutch-free before May, but the complications prevented me from moving forward on the appropriate time schedule with physical therapy. I was finally able to walk without crutches while I was home and only used one crutch when out and about just a few weeks before the second surgery.
I started that internship at only 1 week post-surgery with a 14-inch fresh scar down leg. They had just taken the stitches out. I was ordered to another 2 weeks of non-weight bearing on the hip and had to use crutches for the first month of that internship. We were cautious because I could easily fall and break my leg without having a plate screwed in holding the bone together. Apart from not being able to carry much, I was ready. I didn’t need pain medication this time (that’s another story). The other thing I learned through all this really just reinforced what I already knew: Always follow the directions on your prescriptions. It can save your life or spare you needless suffering. I won’t have to suffer another surgery to remove another metal plate on this leg because I took all the calcium and vitamin D.
Always follow the directions on your prescriptions. It can save your life or spare you needless suffering.
Thanks to taking all the calcium and other prescription level supplements my surgeon gave me, my bone healed enough that I didn’t need a new allergy-friendly plate. I just had to be extra careful not to fall or jump for the next 12 months or so. Then I was in physical therapy for another 6 months re-learning how to use my leg…again. I was in physical therapy off-and-on all year. It was the beginning of February to mid-December. I was at the mercy of my physical therapist’s availability. Thankfully, being in academia, as a student, assistant, or intern, provided me with more flexibility than any other job could provide. Some days it was a 9:30am appointment and other days it was 3:45pm. That was the selling point for academia.
I’ve seen my professors keep weird office hours, go home at random hours of the day, work from home when they’re sick or their child is sick, etc. I need that flexibility. I don’t mind bringing work home with me if it’s something I deeply love. I would do it anyway. It’s important to recognize when you need to leave work at the office and not bring it home. Some professions make it much easier than others. Academia seems to be 24/7/365. That used to scare me. I understand it now (also another story). And I love it. I suppose it was another case of fearing the unknown. But I’m here now embracing this life and hoping it takes to me like I have taken to it.
I’m older, wiser, and I’ve been through hell and back in many ways.
This time I have vision and understand the deep well from which my passion overflows. I don’t need more time to figure out my direction. So here’s to another 4+ years of poverty, stress, and lots of reading and research as I begin the PhD in Health Behavior at Indiana University this August! I’m sure I will have many days where the climate (political or actual weather) will make me wish I chose Oregon instead, but I’m so excited to have been accepted into my top choice program!
Also my GRE scores just expired today, so I’m ecstatic to never take the GRE again. Now excuse me while I go find some wood to knock on.
I used this photo on social media to announce my decision to accept the offer of admission to Indiana University.
For my Epidemiology and Community Assessment class, our final assignment was to create a public service announcement about an intervention used for a public health problem. Being personally familiar with this disease that plagues many more women than most realize, I chose to cover the use of the birth control pill to manage endometriosis. Unfortunately, some of the graphics, transitions, and fonts did not transfer well from PowerPoint to OneDrive.
Here is a little hint at what I have been doing in academia lately.
We watched this TED talk in class tonight and it really hit hard with me in so many ways, in my personal life and in my academic career. I highly recommend all watch it (it’s not limited to just social worker hearts and minds)!
Though I can’t pinpoint the exact moment, I know there was a point where I became just slightly more vulnerable to others and that is what pushed me to switch to social work. Initially, it was vulnerability in the form of compassion for others. Being vulnerable myself was not even a thought or option at first because I have a very deeply rooted fear that being vulnerable would lead people to reject me and being vulnerable in that would bring more pain that I could handle. It was after I began the process of pursuing social work, a career all about compassion, that I learned I didn’t believe I was worthy of the same compassion I was giving.
I didn’t believe I was worthy of the same compassion I was giving
While believing I am worthy of compassion and connection is still something I am working on and will be for a while, embracing and focusing on the positives of vulnerability has been empowering in building my own self-worth, which, as a result, has allowed me to possess greater kindness and undying care for the people around me and the great compassion required of social workers. Being vulnerable is scary and seems very risky at times, but I think the “high risk, high reward” idea is very applicable here and, frankly, I think in the context of vulnerability the saying should be “high risk, much higher reward.” And honestly, being vulnerable allows us to be more authentic and authenticity is really what I want and need out of myself, the people I love, and (hopefully) this world.
This post is about one of my very recent projects in graduate school. For my Research Methods in Social Work class, my partner and I were particularly interested in the effects of slut shaming on young women’s mental health. We created a professional survey by which to collect data concerning experienced and perceived slut shaming as well as information regarding mental health status and history from young women at the multiple colleges and universities in Columbia, Missouri. The possibility of publication is being thrown around so I will not divulge any direct quotes from our final draft (although, feel free to request more information privately…I am happy to share more!).
We presented our research to our class at the end of the semester. It seems odd that we are smiling in this picture when “Sexually Depressed” is so easily read on our poster. Yet we were truly excited to share the knowledge we gained from our study as very little research on this topic currently exists.
This is such an accurate depiction of academia.
Originally posted at Hook & Eye (here). Cross-posted with permission.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the demands made on graduate students and the emotional labour that is required as a result. Academia privileges and glorifies mental labour (from the qualifying exams you have to take to the dissertation that you will write). But in my experience, the academy is mute when it comes to the question of the emotional labour that these acts of mental and intellectual rigor entail. Nobody talks about his or her feelings. If, as Tom Hanks famously proclaims in A League of Their Own, “there’s no crying in baseball,” then there is certainly no crying in academia. And so academia requires maintaining a vow of silence as you fight to live in this Darwinian “survival of the fittest.” Yet the dirty secret that no one wants you to know is…
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Academy of Michaella 