On my last day with Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic, it was a slow day in the office, and really it was just a day of few appointments and hanging out. We spent the majority of the day once again without Dr. McElveen, as he was in surgery again. For fun, the office ran some of their tests on me, including their SOT test which serves as a test for people with challenged balance due to some ear problem. Funnily enough, going into the test, as an athlete and as someone with good enough balance (or so I thought), it was actually challenging and very disorienting. After a few tests for fun, we all had lunch together and then I said my goodbyes to everyone in the office, as I had actually had a very fun time working with them and helping them along with their work. Unfortunately, I was not able to see Dr. McElveen today on my last day very much, as he dropped in real quick and then left, but thankfully I said my goodbyes on Tuesday in the OR. Overall, this week was very interesting and definitely introduced me to things I had never before seen, and I am very thankful for the opportunity that I was given.
Author: prestonc574
Day 7
Today, on my third day with Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic, it was a much calmer, chilled out day. Since Dr. McElveen was not present for a majority of the day, as he is usually out Tuesday-Thursday doing surgeries (as I attended yesterday), the office was much quieter, and instead of around 50 appointments, there were really only 2 or 3. With this decreased inflow of people in the office, I got to have a much more relaxed day, where I could actually take some pictures of the office, instead of frantically running around it. I just spent the day today from 8-4 walking around and helping with some easy hearing tests to recommend people certain procedures as well as discussing the benefits and downfalls of implants versus hearing aids with some of the customers.
Day 6
Today was the day I drove out to Duke’s Raleigh Hospital to attend 3 surgeries throughout the day and follow Dr. McElveen through his operation schedule. I’ll admit I was anxious walking in, but once I had thrown on my scrubs and sat down for the first surgery, the moment it started the anxiety turned into curiosity, and the curiosity into interest.
I cannot disclose too much about the operations I attended out of respect for the families, nor can my pictures be of the live scene as that is again disrespectful, but I was able to get my hands on some of the actual pictures taken by Dr. McElveen through the microscope, and I must say here and now that if you the reader are squeamish or opposed to blood, you definitely should stop reading this or look away. The following pictures will be followed by text for a little more in-depth understanding.
Again, I’m warning you. Stop here if you don’t really want to see the pictures and the explanation.
So, the first surgery, from which these pictures came, was an operation to insert a cochlear implant for a patient whose hearing had been fully lost. A cochlear implant in one very simplified sentence is basically a hearing aid that is inserted into the skull and connected to the cochlear nerve to stimulate it to once again create functioning hearing. For the patient above, a large incision was made behind the ear to begin, and the skin was pulled open to reveal the back of their skull. In particular, the part of the skull being worked on above is called the mastoid bone and is located at the base of the skull behind the ear. Once they removed the periosteum, or the membrane covering the skull, in the operation area, they brought out a bone drill and began to form the hole pictured above. After what felt like a lot of drilling, passing through the corrugated midsection of the mastoid, the drill finally punctured through into the inner ear, and what had effectively happened was that by going through the bone, they had circumvented the eardrum, therefore allowing them to leave it unharmed for further use. After puncturing into the inner ear cavity, they found the cochlear nerve, one of the four in the inner ear cavity, and made a small incision into which they placed one of the electrodes of the cochlear implant. After ingraining the finger-sized implant a space big enough to fit into the bone of the mastoid, they inserted the implant and then released the skin hooks and sewed the patient’s incision closed. In the end, even though the hole in the skull pictured above looks large and intrusive, the amount of skull bone removed would be unnoticeable to the patient and the scar was quite thin and hard to notice. And besides, the patient now again has functional hearing, which I’m sure anyone would take if the consequence was a thin scar behind the ear. After that operation had ended, I went on to watch two more, from which I don’t have any pictures. They were both tympanoplasties, which is the reconstruction of an eardrum through grafted skin and cartilage. They were as well very interesting, and each operation was done expertly well and quickly by Dr. McElveen and his nurse team. Overall, today was very interesting and educational and I am very thankful to Dr. McElveen and all of the patients for their graciousness in allowing me to attend these surgeries.
Day 5
Today began my four-day spell with Carolina Ear and Hearing Clinic, and for my first day, it was quite eventful. I was working under a renowned doctor by the name of Dr. McElveen, who I met during the 8 AM board meeting. He is a very kind person who keeps the office happy and entertained through his happy attitude that spreads. At the beginning of the day, I worked with the audiology section of the clinic, wherein they specialize in testing people with damaged hearing to see what adjustments through prosthetics/implants to repair their hearing for the rest of their lives. It was very heart-warming to see returning patients come back to the clinic with huge smiles on their faces after a few months of finally being able to hear again thanks to the work performed at the clinic. After working with them for a couple of hours, I moved on to helping Dr. McElveen with his appointments, where I shadowed his schedule and read reports with him, analyzing the symptoms and conditions that the patients were going through, as well as helping him with some of the tests for the patients. After a long lunch break and a warm goodbye to a worker that was having her last day in the office, I continued to shadow Dr. McElveen for the rest of the afternoon. Overall my first day was very fun and I am very excited for the surgeries I am going to attend tomorrow, I’ll make sure to get as many pictures as possible.
Day 4
On my final day with SEPI Engineering, I visited a fourth department that was a subset of their overall company/firm. I say it this way as there are not only four departments in this firm, however, I only visited one per day. Tuesday was Transportation, Wednesday; Environmental and Planning, Thursday; CEI, and finally, Friday was SUE. SUE stands for Subterranean Utility Engineering, which has many functionalities and connections to the other departments. The SUE department is in charge of surveying sites before construction even has the concept of beginning, as the plans that the surveyors put together are the integral first step in any plan. I spent the day today out in the field, starting at 7 AM, with a reflective vest and a baseball hat in the hot sun marking off areas of a plan the company were beginning with two other guys for a substantive amount of time. It was hard work and the breaks were few and far between, but it was fun to talk and connect while also learning the ins and outs of the surveyors’ job. Water became a treasured commodity and sweat became a well-known friend, however after what seemed to be an eternity but what was actually around 6 hours later, we finally called off working to grab some lunch and call the day early, as the sun was becoming unbearable and one of the workers had his daughter’s birthday party to get to this afternoon. Overall, working with SEPI Engineering was a greatly fulfilling process and definitely opened my eyes to the opportunity of pursuing a career in engineering, and was a great way as well to meet some great, happy people who were more than willing to share every bit of knowledge they possibly could for me. I really appreciated all that SEPI did for me and am very thankful for the opportunity that I was given to work with them for the short time that I did.
Day 3
Through my third out of four days, I was given the opportunity to leave the office space and try my hand in the field for the full experience. I was given my own hard hat and my own fluorescent yellow vest and trudged out into the dust and sand and dirt in my leather work boots, and after having a two-hour long session about the rules and regulations when in construction and doing construction work, we got in the truck and headed out to one of their project sites. Throughout the day, I got to visit a few of the sites that are currently in progress, as well as the plans for the projects as well as projected costs and lifespans. I got to visit their current site at Mills Park, where they are planning on building a new baseball field and a new section to the greenway that they have there. Unfortunately, there were regulations voided at that site, so for now, that project is being put on hold, and may not be finished for a while. It was another early start this morning, but not as early as I have to arrive for work tomorrow. Excited to see what is in store for me for my last day with SEPI.
Day 2
On my second day, the planned schedule was similar in structure to the first, another day in the office learning the ins and outs of a department, this time with the Planning and Environmental department. I got to spend time with many interesting people once again who loved their job and were fully willing and excited to share information about what they do daily. I once again couldn’t help but be interested in everything they said and what they showed me, and I was allowed and encouraged to ask questions that enhanced the conversations we had. I got to look in on very interesting projects that their team had been working on for years, as well as projects they were just starting. I learned about how the information I had learned in the Transportation Department the day before linked up with and connected to what occurs in the Planning and Environmental Department. I went out to lunch on our lunch break with some of the people I met that day and had a great time talking with them and connecting over college talk, as they had just recently graduated. I had another great day at the office and I am very excited to get to go off-site tomorrow and the next day for some field measurements and calculations.
Day 1
On Day 1, I went into the building up to the sixth floor expecting an awkward first encounter and expecting to feel extremely out of place in a desk-job. My expectations could not have been farther from what truly came to be. When I walked out of the elevator, and up to the receptionist desk as I was instructed to via email, I was greeted with a warm welcome and a smile, which I also received from the woman I had previously talked to over email, and as well from everyone I went on to meet. The environment was calming and welcoming, the building had a modern style with lots of windows and a great view over the area. The cubicles were nothing like what one would expect; they were open and personalized with a friendly feel. The department I was assigned to for my first day was the Transportation unit, which I overall found very interesting. To summarize my day in a sentence, I spent around 2 hours with a specialist in their respective division of the Transportation unit, of which there were four: Roadway design, Waterway design, Traffic design, and Traffic analyzation. There were presentations and videos as well as full walkthroughs on interesting, expensive, licensed programs and their functionality. I was shown through the processes of designing roads, water pipes, and traffic functions like roundabouts, as well as simulations demonstrating the flow of traffic in real-time on existing roadways versus proposed roadway changes. Overall, my first day was very interesting and I am fully prepared and very excited for my second day.
