Summer Intern Perspectives: Lauren Perez, AMCP Foundation/Abbvie Intern
Published October 2022
This summer, I was given the opportunity to partake in the AMCP Foundation/AbbVie Internship Program in Health Outcomes. I spent ten enriching weeks at the AbbVie Lake County offices working alongside the Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR) strategy team for oncology assets. The internship allowed me to engage and complete informational interviews with past internship alums, members of AMCP Foundation, and AbbVie staff. The internship was just the experience I needed and helped to revitalize and refine my ambitions for a future career in HEOR.
My experience at AbbVie was nothing short of amazing. I had countless opportunities for skillset development and network expansion. AbbVie arranged for the other interns and me to meet with several leads, directors, and VPs in a setting where we could hear their career journeys and questions about their thoughts, experiences, and advice. Additionally, every week all the HEOR interns arranged a time to meet and discuss current projects.
Most of the internship at AbbVie was dedicated to completing the capstone project that I will present at AMCP Nexus 2022. The project was a systematic literature review characterizing the use of patient-reported outcomes (PRO) in early-phase clinical trials of solid tumors. My immediate preceptors Qingqing Xu, Rohini Sen, Manan Shah, and Sudeep Karve, guided this project. With the support of these individuals and the rest of the strategy team, I was eager to give my full attention to my main project and tackle all other opportunities that came my way.
Alongside my experiences at AbbVie, I was also nurtured by AMCP Foundation. With AMCP Foundation, I was able to attend relevant seminars, complete a journal club, engage with peers at other internship sites, and have regular meetings with an assigned mentor. The other interns and I created a group chat where we shared our experiences over the summer and even hosted some happy hours after work. My mentor was a previous AMCP Foundation alumnus, Jasmine Inman. Dr. Inman took time out of her schedule to meet with me weekly and helped me further develop my knowledge and skills related to business acumen, professional social skills, and health disparities in managed care.
I plan to leverage my newly developed professional identity and skillset as I move forward throughout my fourth-year rotations and begin interviews for opportunities after graduation. I will forever be so grateful for what this experience provided me and how I was able to collaborate with the brilliant individuals working within the field. I want to extend a big thank you to everyone at AbbVie that contributed to my experience. I would also like to thank everyone at AMCP Foundation. You are doing so much to impact the career trajectory of students. Ebony Clay, Kenneth Garcia, and Mei Huang all did a phenomenal job arranging this summer internship.