Internship Alum Interviews: Melissa Brown
This post is part of a series of interviews with past interns about how Concussion Alliance impacted their lives going forward. This interview follows up with Melissa Brown, who is currently a first-year medical student at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Elmira campus. To learn more, see Melissa Brown’s profile page. This interview was conducted by Ella Gullickson, a sophomore history major at Carleton College, as part of her December 2023 internship. See Ella’s profile.
Interview Summary
Highlights of Internship
I haven't done too many internships in my day, but this one was really, really special. One of the highlights for me was the community. I feel like the whole summer internship group established a community right off the bat that was really strong. We met up, I think every single day, and we did this cute little rose, bud, thorn thing. We had three group leaders who were similarly aged and they kind of guided us through things, but the rose, bud, thorn I think was really sweet. We all got to hear about each other's lives outside of the internship a little bit which made it easier then to have discussions about deeper topics relating to concussions later down the line because we were connected to each other on a different level.
On a broader level, what drew me in was wanting to be part of that project. My understanding of recovery from concussions deepened after having had this internship experience, especially since my project was about cognitive rehabilitation therapy. I have a much deeper understanding of what the experience of recovering from concussion is. I definitely learned a lot intellectually.
As an athlete, thinking about questions of long-term effects and the struggle of having a concussion as an athlete really connected to me. The internship created a nuanced perspective of a complex medical issue. We had a couple people come in who talked about their experiences with concussions. I think that was incredibly valuable just because it gives you more of an emotional understanding of what it's really like to feel that way. Then it motivates and inspires you to remember more details about how to heal it because this problem is so misunderstood.
The bottom line is: if people are looking to get into this internship, do the internship. That's my 2 cents.
What is she up to now?
I'm currently a first-year medical student at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, the Elmira campus, and I was an intern for the Concussion Alliance in the summer of 2021.
I presented a poster at the American Association for the History of Medicine's annual conference in Saratoga Springs. It was in April of 2022, so that was my senior year of college. The poster was called “How Dangerous is Heading?: Soccer, Brain Injury and History” and used to be on the Concussion Alliance website. My mentor was Dr. Stephen Casper. He kind of brought me along, and he was the one who inspired that whole poster. He helped me through a lot of the work with it, but that was a really cool experience just to see. I'd never been to any big conference like that. If you're going to go to a conference, this was a cool one to go to because the people were all really, really interesting and I spent a lot of time talking about really in-depth topics.
Concussion Alliance is a Passion Project
Concussion Alliance is a passion project, and that makes it really special on its own. Conor and Malayka built this all themselves, and I just think that's really impressive. I really felt really connected to the whole group with Conor and Malayka having formed it themselves. I feel like they're kind of the source of all this passion and I wanted to be part of this project moving forward. I just think it's really valuable, something to be part of. I felt really inspired to continue working with them based on everything I saw them doing. It was also really inspiring to see all the people that have helped them out. They had a bunch of positions and PhD doctorates, all the people that are joining in and helping them out and volunteering as expert guest speakers.
Lasting Impact to Concussion Awareness
I think one of the biggest things is that, before Concussion Alliance, I wasn't paying attention to concussion. I think you can have a knowledge base and then forget about it later when you're interacting with people. But I had this internship late enough in my academic career that I hear when people say they've had a concussion I pay more attention. And I think that in itself is valuable because then I had one friend my senior year, she was a sophomore, and she just had a lot of trouble for months and months with bright lights, and she couldn't go out to parties, clubs, anything with loud music, she couldn't go. And she's like a fun-loving sort of person, and I guess that is something I don't think I would've known and picked up on without Concussion Alliance. So in a sense, I feel like it increases my empathy for concussion. I think it gave me a lot of resources to be able to have conversations with people (especially loved ones) that I wouldn't have been able to have before. It is incredibly valuable anytime you can just have a greater understanding of what someone else is going through.
