Day7 – Page 2 – CA Work Experience Program

Day 7: General Assembly Pt 2

I did not have to arrive at the General Assembly until the late morning, as the earlier hours were lacking with legislative activity. When I entered the building, I found Sarah in the 1100 court, where she was waiting to meet with Senator Dan Blue, the Democratic minority leader, about cash bail reform. Various other lobbying organizations were in his office–including a college political group and black sorority–but we were not waiting for long. We were soon seated across from Senator Blue as Sarah explained the specifics of cash bail. Senator Blue is definitely on par with the ACLU about this issue and will be a champion in the weeks to come.

Following the meeting, I wandered around downtown Raleigh and met my friend for lunch. We enjoyed a quick meal of Happy and Hale (I ordered a wonderful smoothie and a vegan, gluten free brownie) and then I headed back to the legislative office building to debrief a bill concerning abuse in prisons that had been introduced in the general assembly. The ACLU found this bill problematic because it further criminalizes those with mental illness and does not respect personal bodily autonomy. The ACLU had partnered with other reform groups from across different political ideologies, which was interesting to witness, especially in this divided political climate. Overall, it was another enlightening and relaxing day!

Day 7 : Animal Facility Tour

Today was a slow day, with the excitement starting at 10 when we ventured to the digital imaging lab to get the pictures of the malignant schwannoma of the eye. We took snapshots of the images at 7.5 magnification, 0.7 magnification, and 40.0 magnification. There were about 10 different images of 3 different slides with 3 different stains. While we were taking the images, Mrs. Allen stopped by to see what we were doing. We explained to her, with the help of Dr. Malarkey, what each stain meant and what each tumor was.

Our next big event was after lunch when we got a tour of the basement of the NIEHS building. In this basement area was where all of the mice and rats were kept for the studies. Although we were not allowed to walk in the room with the animals since you need a full gown and mask, but we were able to look through the glass at them. There were huge rooms filled with mice and rats in individual containers stacked on shelves. Some mice were even held in rooms with red light, making it seem like nighttime during the day and day during the night. Around these rooms were rooms were the containers were being cleaned and dried for new studies. There were also surgical rooms for mice and rat operation, and other testing rooms for the mice reaction time and hearing and eyesight.

After our tour Anthony and I went upstairs to continue working our presentation for Thursday on the cellphone radiation study. I am excited for our presentation tomorrow!

Day 7 – The State Crime Lab and More!

Today I was able to experience a variety of things. This morning, I went on a tour of the State Crime Lab, where we saw various laboratories within the building and learned about the multi-step process involved in solving different cases. The tour of the lab was probably one of my favorite things I’ve gotten to do thus far in the program!

After the tour, Mr. Jerry Higgins was kind enough to drive me by a few of the local correctional facilities- such as the North Carolina Correctional Facility for Women and the Wake Correctional Center- so that I could see some of those institutions and the differences between high and low custody correctional centers.

Sign outside the NC Correctional Institution for Women.

Sign outside the Wake Correctional Center.

Then, after lunch, I tagged along with a group that was tasked with filming an excerpt on the State Capitol Police’s Segway system. They filmed several shots of an officer riding the Segway around the government complex, as well as some footage of the officer talking to or offering directions to some citizens.

Overall, today was a lot of fun and- although I regret that the Work Experience Program is coming to an end- I look forward to what my last day will bring tomorrow.

Teaching!!

Today was a very big day for me in my work experience program. In the morning, Mr. Rothrock was back, so I sat and talked with him about the work I did yesterday. Later in the morning, he gave me another assignment of creating a page sized advertisement for a magazine that goes out to every public elementary school kid in Wake County. After that, I set up for the session I was leading individually in the afternoon.

The activity I chose to lead was a modification of a lab I did during my junior year in advanced Environmental Science class. I created an Oil Spill by pouring a thin film of oil on some water in a tin container. I then instructed the campers to create a contraption to clean up the oil spill. Considering most of the kids are elementary school aged, it went surprisingly well. There were some very creative ideas and structures for the contraptions, which was awesome. The kids responded well to my activity and were very engaged.

Day 7

Today was my first day at the Triangle Veterinary Referral Hospital. I arrived at around 8am and met up with Katrine and Madi S. shortly after. The first thing we did was join everyone in rounds by listening to the updates about the animals who had stayed overnight. Our first consult of the day was for a dog in very poor condition. The dog had an equivalent of stage 4 cancer which was restricting it from going to the bathroom. The dog hadn’t eaten or drank anything in almost a week and was vomiting multiple times a day. The family decided to put the dog down that day to end all suffering. It definitely was not a good way to start my first day, but it is apart of the job and is good to experience. Our next consult was much much better. The dog was very upbeat running around the office, but unfortunately was healing from some fractures that had occurred the week before. While the doctor talked to the dog’s owner, we got to sit and play with the dog which was a good turnaround from the last appointment.

We then watched an amputation surgery. I know this sounds very sad, but we were reassured that the dog would feel significantly better after having the operation. After lunch, nothing big happened we just wandered around seeing all the little things going on around the office.

Day 7 – Tergus Pharma: Regulations Galore

Liya and I spent time with the IVRT (in vitro release testing) group today. Unlike yesterday’s work, we did not deal with any skin tissue or mimic precise biological human conditions. Instead, we looked at product quality and the release capabilities – specifically, uniformity between test trials. Our morning was spent with the group leader Craig, who gave us general information about IVRT, and Akeen, the scientist who showed us the dosing trials which have many similarities to the IVPT group. Both use vertical Franz diffusion cells, but instead of skin, IVRT uses a synthetic membrane (see pic below) and applies cream in accordance with surface area over exact quantities. The testing period is also much shorter (6 hrs. instead of 72). During the waiting period, Liya and I got to ask questions to Janet and Meredith who were also in the room. From conversation, they gave pointers on job trajectory and finding the right area for us. Basically, I learned that “adulting” is complicated haha.

After lunch, we met up with Meredith again who explained her work with HPLC (high pressure liquid chromatographers). For patient confidentiality, we didn’t see her work in action, but again, we spent a lot of time with questionings. At this time, Ms. Allen visited us! We spent the last part of the day talking about our two weeks and the new things we’ve been learning. Before we checked out, we met one last time with Craig who gave more details about FDA regulations, the reasons for high drug pricings, and lots on the legal elements to patents, reproducibility, and steps to manufacturing.

Day 7-Day of Surgery!

Today I was with Dr. Chalgren since it was Dr. Boyse’s day off, and we did different types of procedures, including surgery under local anesthetic! We started the morning with mohs surgery on 5 patients, which took up the whole morning. Mohs surgery (as shown above) is when part of the cancerous skin is removed, but only to a certain extent (since there is no reason to take our more skin than necessary) , and then this skin is then taken, cured, looked at under the microscope. Then if the microscope shows roots of cancer then you go back and take more out, but if its clear then you sew the patient up with stitches and let them go! This was super cool to see, because it was done on different parts of the body (face, back, arm, and more) on different patients. It was also interesting to see that some patients where clear on the first round but it took on patients 3 rounds to be clear of cancer. Also Dr. Chalgren showed me to close the patient properly to minimize scaring you have to extend the incision a little bit, since the incision is a circle (since the two types of cancers removed with procedure are circular), you have to extend to be more of an eclipse shape so it can be sewn together in a linear fashion. Luckily he was very efficient with his time so we were done with all 5 patients by noon, so we got a nice long lunch. Like monday, a drug representative brought in lunch for the office, so that was nice. Then after lunch i watched Dr. Chalgren do more removals but this time he just took out the problem area and closed it up! Today was very different than the last two days, but I enjoyed it a lot, and thought it was fascinating! Image result for mohs surgery

Day 7 – Communications

Today I shadowed Seneca who works on the communications team at BCBSWY. We attended many meetings throughout the day with other communications team members such as Jeannette, Abby, Lacey, and Taylor, which concerned material like news letters being sent to vendors, pamphlets to members, and other streams of communication BCBSWY utilizes. I got to sit down with Abby who works a lot on the social media for BCBSWY, who gave me some advice and insight for my future plans. As a past political science major, she shares some interests and shared a very interesting early career story, and is enthused for my eagerness to travel as part of my career. Seneca, who has a background in photo journalism, graphic design, and newspaper editing also shared a bit more of my creative side, and gave me some advice for using those artistic skills in and out of the office.

In the afternoon Jeannette and Seneca hosted me on a little field trip out to a local print shop where they worked with the PBR Printing on finalizing a major project being launched later this year. Seneca designed some really cool pamphlets with some information to be sent out to members. It was pretty interesting seeing a smaller scale print shop compared to HM Document Solutions, which I visited in Pittsburgh. It is also very exciting to see the mock prints as tangible evidence of all the hard work the team is putting in for the new technology they are launching later this year. Only a short time left in the office until I hop back on a plane to share my stories on Friday!

Day 7

Today, I spent most of my time preparing for my presentation and finishing my project. I began my editing my CAD files this morning with the help of Daniel to make them easier to print. After this, I spent most of my time try to fix code. I was trying to send another value of serial communication. I also spent a lot of time testing the program to ensure it worked properly and the correct values were being received. I also created some algorithms to interpret what the user is inputting to change values in the program. After some help from Zack I was able to get the program working. I saved the working version as final and then it stopped working. Zack and I have not been able to figure out why it had mysteriously started to not function properly. I had been able to get serial communication in both directions and the screen to update properly and then serial communication broke down after no code changes. This will be my first priority tomorrow. Hopefully, I will be able to figure this out. The code below creates sliders on the user interface that allows them to adjust values within the code.

Work, work, work, work, work, work: Day 7 at KW Elite

All I want is this to be my back porch. That is all.

Proof that I’ve been working and not just taking pictures of random houses

If being a realtor means I can sleep till 9:30, sign me up! Natalie and I met at 11 this morning to tour a new development….that is so new it didn’t exist! Great. Instead, we decided to take a road trip out to Pittsboro to another new development…that while built was unattended and as either of us wanted to break in, we kept driving. Third time’s the charm? You would’ve thought. The third development was a cult meeting. Literally. We arrived and about 22 of the same color, model, year pick up trucks did too and then they proceeded to almost surround us. Needless to say we packed up and drove out quicker than we came in. We finally arrived at Lake Castleberry, a CalAtlantic development built right on *Shocker* Lake Castleberry. When I tell you these were crazy homes, I mean crazy. We toured three models, each nicer than the last, and learned a lot about how to market a neighborhood. In short, put every feature in the model to bump the price from $500,000 to $995,000. All humor aside, it was actually a super important lesson. Natalie and I then went back to KW and worked on finishing touches on our projects, two things we are both pretty proud of! Truth be told, leaving will be bitter (with no sweet) because I will miss all of the staff, all of the fun real estate lessons, and the houses of course. Oh the houses.