Day 5

Day 5 – Social Events and Sushi

Although we didn’t interact with as many FHI 360 employees today, our many projects ensured that our day was as full as always. The first hour of our day was spent working on the innovation project that I have told you all oh so much about. Finally, after another session of hard work, we finished our presentation!

Next, we spoke to Dr. Greg Kopf, Director of R&D in the group that we are working with, the Contraceptive Technology Innovation Department. He provided an incredibly unique insight into his journey and gave us lots of career and life advice. Our conversation with him was invaluable.

After some more time to work and lunch at Basan, the sushi restaurant nearby – their BuyOne GetOne HalfOff deal on Mondays had been LONG awaited by Krishan, RJ, Chiara, and I – we met with Kristine Torjesen. She is a pediatrician by training, but is currently a scientist who has a large leadership role in clinical trials. As someone who is ABSOLUTELY a leader and rather than a follower and has loved her leadership roles this year, our talk with her really resonated with me. Whatever field I go into, I know I eventually want to have leading and decision-making abilities.

Finally, we sat in on a meeting with the person who deals with contraceptives at the National Institute of Health. I would be lying if I said I understood more than 20% of the conversation, but it was still interesting to listen in on. Finally, after this meeting, we joined a retirement party for one of the FHI 360 employees. We enjoyed the company of all these intelligent and sweet people, as well as an assortment of desserts.

the long-awaited sushi

Day 5 Update

The beginning to the new week of my internship with Dr. Huff started out great! After meeting at 7:00 and changing into our scrubs, we made our way into the operating room for the first case.

In the first procedure of the day, Dr. Huff had to repair a rotator cuff. In the operation, Dr. Huff used a scope with camera along with a variety of tools to help cut, snip, and trim any tissue needed to complete the procedure. All of the procedure was done through two small incisions in the patient’s shoulder. After locating the tear within the shoulder joint, Dr. Huff used a suture to mark the tear from below the rotator cuff so he could find it later in the procedure. After doing so, he then moved above the rotator cuff to repair the tear. To repair the shoulder, Dr. Huff used a bur, similar to a grinder, to trim away the bone spur inside the joint. If he was to skip this step, then the bone spur would cause the muscles to tear again. After he took away the spur, he then used a suture to tie the tear together. Along with the sutures, he also used biodegradable anchors to securely fasten the sutures into the muscle tissue. These anchors would dissolve after about a year.

Another interesting procedure from today was fixing a Stener lesion which is also known as “gamekeepers thumb”. Stener lesions are caused due to repeated stress. Because of the stress, the ligament that had originally connected the metacarpal, the first thumb bone, and trapezium, the thumb knuckle, was torn. To fix the ligament, Dr Huff drilled two pins into the metacarpal. He then tied the suture to the ligament and to the end of both pins. Following this, Dr Huff pulled the pins through the metacarpal bone which threaded the suture through the metacarpal. The suture was then tied on the lateral side of the metacarpal, so the ligament sat firmly against the medial side of the metacarpal. During recovery, the ligament would heal and develop tissue to secure itself against the metacarpal. Then the stitches would be able to be removed.

After talking about hunting, fishing and summer plans in the break room, we entered our final surgery of the day. This surgery was very quick. The patient had a MRSA infection which had caused a fluid buildup in the elbow and wrist. During the operation, Dr. Huff drained the fluid by making a small incision.

To cap off the day, we walked over to his office after a quick lunch break. We then met with patients. Again, like I have mentioned before, I particularly like this part of the day because it has allowed me to see the personal relationship between the doctor and patient. Today was another great day working with Dr. Huff and I look forward to another exciting day tomorrow!

Image result for rotator cuff repair

Rotator cuff repair

Day 5: Kjeldahl ?

In the morning, Ms. Mackenzie and I worked on one of the most tedious tests in the lab: total Kjeldahl nitrogen (basically, all the nitrogen in the sample). The first step in the process turns all the nitrogen in the sample into NH3 by using a mercuric oxide. I labeled the test tubes and added a bunch of purified water and then added five mL of the mercuric oxide. The water samples are preserved in sulfuric acid already, so the test tube contents end up being highly acidic. The test tubes are then placed on this cool stirrer thing, which spins them around super fast to mix it. It is then all heated for about 4 hours at approximately 280 degrees C. At the end of this process there was barely any liquid left in the sample (around ⅕ of the original), and more water was added.

In the afternoon, Ms. Mackenzie had me do a few projects involving lots of paper and organization. She gave me a spreadsheet and had me type in all the “blanks” (test run and their corresponding values. I also organized a few binders and worked with even more stickers.

Image 1: test tubes (white things are boiling rocks)

Image 2: The spinning thing and all the test tubes

Day 5 – Ed, Dona, and Construction Homes

On this glorious Monday Tommy and I started our day off with doing some work on 919 realty’s Instagram, calendar, and twitter. After a cup of coffee and some work completed we had a meeting with a land development agent, Ed. We had a discussion about confidence in speaking and planning. After our interesting meeting with Ed we moved on over to Dona where she told us more about listing. Dona showed us how the competition is on the market now and the presentation of a home. At the end of the meeting we also showed Dona some work that Tommy and I had been working on earlier to get her approval of it. Since Tommy and I loved visiting the model homes and writing reviews on them, Kristi sent us some more locations to visit. Tommy and I visited two sites and were awed by there extravagant presentation. At the end of the day Tommy and I were exhausted going through the magnificent homes.

Day Five – A Visit to the Department of Transportation

I should invest in finding my driver’s license. Today was the second consecutive day where I did not have but, more importantly, needed some sort of state identification. This recurring motif ended before I had to drive home, thankfully, as Mr. Deans Eatman was courteous enough to allow me entrance into the DOT’s building without ID. However, I learned more than the fact that I had no common sense. Mr. Deans and Ms. Joy Hicks soon taught me all about what the DOT does and how they do what they do. This week’s work largely consisted of passing the ‘DriveNC’ bill to the legislature, which was, as I understood, a bill which would allow the DOT to borrow money in order to allow for more flexibility in scheduling their projects. After a snack break and a lunch break we were able to listen in on a conference call including the office of the Governor many representatives of many of the NC departments. My friends explained to me that every Monday these departments get together to discuss majors issues as well as the Governor’s activity for the week. Neat stuff! Afterwards we took a quick trip to the legislature so that Deans could possibly talk to some representatives and senators about the DriveNC bill. During this trip there were many protestors shouting inside the building but soon all of them were arrested. Even more neat. Tomorrow I’m heading back to Devivo and Sams but today I had an awesome experience. Thanks guys!

Day 5 – Finally, Some Data!!

Today was not the most eventful day. When I arrived this morning, I found Kaitlin sitting at her desk. Then, I asked her what we were doing this morning. She wasn’t so sure either, so we went to find Erika. Erika explained to us that Kit, the IT guy at Bavarian Nordic, came back from his vacation today so we would finally be able to install the software we needed to view the Brachyury data. We had been trying to get this software since last week! However, she told us Kit was currently in a meeting so he wouldn’t get to us for another hour. In that time, Kaitlin and I looked through the study details, which were hard to understand. We did this for about two hours when we realized Kit hadn’t helped us yet. Unfortunately, someone else needed his help and that was more pressing. Therefore, we kept reading for a while longer.

When Kit was finally able to help, he was able to get the software up and running in about 10 minutes. By that time, we were ready for lunch. After Kaitlin and I ate our meals, we were finally able to view the Brachyury data and manipulate it using the SAS programming skills we learned last week. We were supposed to meet with Dorian to talk about pharmacovigilance, but there was a death in a study that required her immediate attention. Instead of meeting with Dorian, Kaitlin and I met with Erika to get started making graphs and tables. This time was extremely helpful because all the raw data was really overwhelming.

Once we were all set up, Kaitlin and I sat in the conference room working on making sense of some of the data. It was really hard to figure out what data to compare and find out whether the graphs we were creating would be helpful. Kaitlin and I worked until 4. At that time, Erika had said we deserved to go home. After those few hours, I finally have a better understanding of SAS programming in the real world. I also got a better look at Erika’s job and what it entails. Tomorrow, we will look at the visuals that Kaitlin and I made to see what we can glean from them!

Day 5: Working with KDB!

Today was my first day at KDB, a law firm in Durham that was willing to let me intern there for this week. KDB is a law firm based out of Raleigh and was co-founded by John Kavinsky, Matt’s dad. I went to their office and had lunch with them and talked to Ms. Rodney Moye and Mr. John Kavinsky. They spent their time helping me get adjusted to “Real-Job-Life”, as they put it. Ms. Moye made a power point presentation to me about what a patent is and what a patent application is as well. Ms. Kayla Kelly also helped me through the company’s website as well as the various websites she and her colleagues use on a daily basis. It was overall very interesting to learn how a normal day in the life of a patent attorney or a paralegal really is, and I look forward to learning even more the rest of this week!

Today, I did a lot of research about transistors. There are two different groups of transistors ones that work off current and ones that work off voltage. For both, they are made up of layers of silicon called n and p layers depending upon what the silicon is mix with. The p is for positive and the n is for negative. LED’s are made from layers of this silicon. The silicon will only allow voltage to flow in one direction from n to p just like on an LED. There a two different types of current transistors npn and pnp which describes the ways the layers of silicon are laid out. Transistors are great for acting as switches or amplifying current. One great depiction a ran across in my research was about a hearing aid which used a transistor to increase the current to make the sound louder. MOSFET transistors work by voltage. MOSFET uses a metal oxide to separate the path in which current will flow until a greater voltage is applied. An important part to a transistor is the three pins which vary in name depending on whether they are voltage or current based. They are the variable, in, and out (my names for simplification across both types of transistors). Current flows in only one direction in transistors which is why I renamed them in and out. The variable pin is what is used to determine if current will flow or not. For the current to flow, the VGS (voltage between the variable and the out pins) must be greater than the Vth (voltage threshold) of the particular transistor. I did all this research to understand how I must connect my pump and power supplies together in order for a transistor to act as a switch. I tinkercaded my circuit to show how I would connect everything to an Arduino board. The following are pictures of how everything got connected. I ended up using 1 analog port and 4 digital ports. I have three LED’s on my breadboard to indicate water tank status. Additionally, the yellow device pictured below is a resistance sensor that can be used to detect how much water is present. This sensor will output numbers from 1023 all the way too 300 which we and the computer must be able to interpret. Additionally, the black and silver tower on the red board is a transistor that I mentioned above. I was able to solder this transistor, resistor, and ports to the board to create something that is a bit easier to use. However, we did not find this to be the case. Once I had soldered the board, I was trying to test the board, but we were unsure of how to plug the board into the circuit and which inputs were connected to which part of the transistor. Therefore, we did as one person called it, the bleep test. A basic connectivity test showed us which parts were connected and were able to diagram the circuit out. If you are wondering why it is called the bleep test, it is because the volt meter bleeps with the there is a path between the two nodes. Today, I was also able to test the pump which works very well and should be able to move a lot of water in very little amount of time reducing the amount of time we will need to run the pump for. I also got a chance to test the resistive sensor for values for various amounts of water present. I believe that a sensor value between 650-750 maybe even higher would indicate need for watering. I am not sure if I have mentioned this yet in my blog, but I have been doing a lot of math that I haven’t posted. From sizing of the casing of the device to sizing of resistors, math is completely necessary and fun (as long as you get it right on the first try not the 8^th). To give you an example of how a resistor calculator might go, I propose the following. Begin with the fact that in a closed circuit that the voltage drops across every component must cancel out the initial voltage. Therefore, if I have a 5V power supply to supply a LED and resistor, I must know the voltage drop across the LED. Simple in fact, just plug it in and measure with a volt meter.

5V-V(drop across LED) – V(drop across resistor)=0

5V-V(drop across LED)=IR

The I or current can be found from the same guide that told you that 5V is output from a pin on an Arduino.

(5V-V(drop across LED))/I=R

Simple Math.

America’s Next Top Model (Homes)!

A kitchen I would be more than happy to learn to cook in!

Never thought I would find my dream house at age 17 but here we are!

Tell me this isn’t the biggest selling feature of, well, ANYTHING!

This was a nice morning. I woke up at 8. Go figure. After a leisurely morning, Kristi let me run to the DMV to grab my gold star license (unnecessary, I know) because Natalie had to go too…or we thought. Turns out I’m a chauffeur for another week! Anyways, once we got to the office we started grinding. I managed to finish my first new development flyer, a nice paper filled with information about location, features, and pricing of a development close to the office. After that, I went ahead and added pictures and links to the unofficial fun holiday list that we had at the office. Afterwards, we met with Ed, a commercial developer at KW. We had a good chat and to be quite honest, it was super productive because he taught me that I really don’t want to get into development. He talked about how it takes a while to get into it and even longer for projects to be completed, two things that would cause my impatience to skyrocket. Similarly, he really conveyed the message that it is not a field to enter into. After this meeting, we met with Dona again to debrief the appointment we had last week. We discussed the comparables that were near the clients house, what they closed for, and what the strategy was to list her house should she really want to move. Natalie and I then went to check out more homes after we finished the morning meetings. We first stopped at the Piazza at Stonewater development, an amazing community right near the Tobacco Trail and Parkside Commons. We toured two models (Sonoma and Oakhurst) and when I tell you they were tricked out, you have no idea. Sonoma was my favorite out of the two, due to the amazing basement (cinema, workshop, and wine cellar included), awesomely huge kitchen, and the amazing closet space. Oakhurst was super nice too, just a bit smaller and less tricked out than Sonoma. However, we learned that Sonoma would be sold anywhere between $735,000 and $1,250,000 (aka the model we toured), so it made sense that Oakhurst was less finished (Oakhurst was listed for a measly $850,000)! Afterwards, we headed out to Amberley Estates, the second community of the day. We had a bit of trouble locating the community, but it was worth the wait! We toured two models again and realized the same thing happened: first model was CRAZY and second was….nice. We thought the first was super cool, albeit a bit awkwardly spaced. However, the second was a bit cheap looking, with more average finishes. Today was an awesome and eyeopening day and we cannot wait to see more properties tomorrow!

Day 5

Today I went back to his house to continue my work. We were able to get a statistical analysis software to work which increased my productivity in analyzing data. I checked for correlations between much of the data. I also re-looked at some of the correlations that I had found earlier eyeballing it, and I used the program to confirm my results. Luckily, they were confirmed. I also gave a presentation on soft edges and cut points. I discussed the problems with cut points and the issues that they can cause when trying to diagnose a patient correctly. The problem with cut points is there are many variables that are not accounted for. I found this topic very interesting and I will continue researching into that as well as analyzing more data. I do not have any pictures because the data I am working with is confidential.