Today was my last day at Southern Dermatology with Dr. Boyse and her two nurses. We had a full schedule with the morning consisting of skin checks, freezing off warts, and other general dermatology. But one of the most exciting cases was using the profractional laser machine (shown below). Basically what this machine does is laser tiny holes to produce collagen and new skin on your face. The machine can be set to different strengths and depths in your skin, so if you really wanted to you could laser off all of the skin on your face and produce new skin. The first time is was used today was to help get rid of a very large pre-cancerous spot. The second time was later in the afternoon (where Dr. Boyse does more cosmetic procedures) where a lady got her whole face done (only on 11% thought) to help reduce aging. It was super cool to see how the laser made tin little holes without any needles. It was also interesting to see Dr. Boyse do it, since the laser only covers a small box area at the time so she had to line it up correctly all over the face to make sure all the areas of skin where covered. Also in the afternoon she did some Botox and some fillers such as lip fillers. This was a great week with Dr. Boyse, seeing both general and cosmetic dermatology and also seeing mohs and excision procedures with Dr. Chalgren!!
Tag: day8
Day 8: Sand and Goodbye :(
Today consisted of a visit from Ms. Follet, finishing TKN samples, playing with a research sandbox, and transferring fecal coliform. The TKN samples caused a few issues: the samples needed to be diluted, but the base wouldn’t properly set, and settings had to be adjusted. Fortunately, by ~3 everything was fixed, and the report was completed.
Dr. Reed set up an augmented reality sandbox (originally designed by someone at UC Davis) that projects a topographical map over the sand. He let me play around with it for a few minutes and described the overall concept and its uses. The sand was a bit sparkly and created super pretty islands with lots of colors! I think this was one of the highlights of my experience and I had a fun time playing around with it.
The day ended with helping Ms. Mackenzie count and transfer fecal coliform colonies. Since yesterday the colonies grew and made little blue dots on the dish. We scraped those off with a small hook and put them in test tubes. Tomorrow Ms. Mackenzie will see if the bacteria is actually fecal coliform or something else by seeing if the tubes produced a gas.
It was sad to leave the CAAE because I thoroughly enjoyed my time there. Everyone was so welcoming and willing to share their knowledge with me! Ms. Mackenzie treated me to lunch and they gave me a cute water bottle!
SAS Work Experience Day 8
Today was my final day at SAS for the work experience program. The first half of the day was spent finishing up in the finance department, learning about FM – Financial Management program, accounting, and getting a nice wrap up of the program by meeting a few more employees in different roles and getting some new information and words of wisdom from them.
Building T
After finishing up in finance, all of the CA students met at Building Q for a pizza lunch. We discussed our experiences from the week and filled out a quick survey. Four SAS employees from various departments came in for a panel where Kayla asked them some questions about their careers and how they’ve gotten to where they are today. It was interesting and extremely helpful to hear about their college experiences and their career paths, and we received a lot of invaluable advice for our futures. I thought this was the perfect way to wrap up our time at SAS, and I leave feeling very glad that I not only got to learn in depth about certain areas of business, but to learn about what an amazing company SAS is!!!
Day 8 – Tergus Pharma: Think Topicals, Think Tergus
For our last day at Tergus Pharma, Liya and I were with the Analytical R&D team. Their group uses analytical method development to test topicals and semi-solid dosage forms. For most of the day, we were with Praneetha who gave us a full run down on what she does with the HPLC’s. Before she used the machine, we watched as she made a sample that tests a gel substance. After calibrating the scales (it can go to the 100,000 thousandths place!) and massing the amount of the gel, she made the solution. Even though the gel was miscible in water, she still had to use sonicators, centrifuges, vortexers, and tons of shaking to make sure the solution was entirely homogenized. This process alone took over 2 hrs, much of which was waiting.
After lunch, we got a demo of more HPLC work and the multistep process for all testing. We met more people (Ravi, Ranjita, Ranbabu, and Andy) who taught us more about their methodologies as well. From everyone in the analytics team and those I met this past week, I think the big takeaway is the huge importance of documentation. Everyone said, “If you didn’t write it down, it never happened.” I never realized that the pharma industry requires incredibly precise and thorough detail.
At the end of the day, we briefly met Vijendra Nalamothu, the CEO of Tergus Pharma, and had the pleasure to speak with him about our experience. This week has been jam packed with new material, but I had fun learning details about pharma. Some details were too esoteric to comprehend, but the team did a great job simplifying everything in ways Liya and I could understand. I’m really grateful that each branch (formulation, IVPT, IVRT, and analytics) took a day to show us their work. Additionally, thanks to Duffy and Wendy who organized this experience for us!
Day 8 – My Last Day
I began my last day at the Governor’s Crime Commission, which takes place in a large conference room where members of the commission sit along an expansive wooden table to discuss matters on the day’s agenda. One of the first items of business on today’s agenda was swearing in new members of the commission. The new members rose from their seats to take an oath, which was read aloud by a judge. Next, the Executive Director, Carolina Valard, gave her updates. These updates included funding and budgeting information in regards to grants. Then, before voting on these grants, the commission was read the voting parameters. This was essentially an ethics reminder, as the parameters were that if a member has any conflicts of interest (whether it be financial or personal) with a grant, they must disclose it in writing and abstain from voting on it. After the Govnorer’s 2018 priorities were read (which included school safety, fighting against the opioid epidemic, and help for sexual assault victims), there was a presentation given on a software called the Law Enforcement Information Exchange (LINX). LINX is a software made for law enforcement by law enforcement. It is a database of information used to help solve crimes that is made up of data uploaded by law enforcement agencies nationwide. This data can be things like past police reports, pawn shop records, license plates, etc.
After the Governor’s Crime Commission ended, I went over to the Community Corrections facility, where I attended a small going away party for one of the employees. Although I didn’t know the employee personally, the impact that she has had on the community around her was obvious in the way that her colleagues spoke of her. Then, Mrs. Walker and Ms. Sonja Bennett (who works with Community Corrections at DPS) walked me around the facility. We stopped in Correction Enterprises, which is a showroom that showcases the various products that inmates make. While in prison, inmates learn how to make things like frames, windmills, upholstery, paper products, woodwork, and more. It’s a way for the inmates to learn skills while incarcerated so that it’ll be easier for them to reintegrate into society once they’re released. I was also able to listen in on a phone interview that Ms. Bennett conducted with the leader of a non-profit organization that works to build playgrounds for special needs children.
Sadly, I also had to say goodbye today. At the end of the day, I sat down to talk with Mrs. Walker (who has been my main host during the program). Before we said goodbye and parted ways, I asked her a question that I’d asked various people I’d worked with during my time at DPS: do you like your job? The employees at the Department of Public Safety deal with many serious topics and have a lot of pressure placed upon them, and I often wondered how they handled this kind of stress; however, the answer I got was always an overwhelming yes. Despite all the things they deal with on a daily basis, the employees at DPS remain persistent and motivated by their passion for protecting the public. Not only did I get to learn and experience so much during this program, but I also got to meet countless wonderful people. Every single person I worked with at DPS was incredibly kind and accommodating, and I can’t express in words how grateful I am to have spent this time with them.
Final Day!!!
Today was the final day for me at Crowder Construction Company. I enjoyed the many various activities I completed during my stay. On this final day, however, I was motivated to complete as much of a two-day job as I could. I teamed up with Ryan to concur the laborious task of calculating the volume of #57 stone-gravel needed to be placed underneath the structure. We began this task by finding the area of the 20 something sided structure, which would then allow us to find the estimated area. After that, we would determine the areas of any gaps underneath the structure that will not need #57 gravel. The area took us around 3 hours to complete and the volume took another 3. This task was not easy as the computer went into the Blue Screen Of Death and refused to work properly. Despite the setback of the limited calculator access, we achieved a 1.3% margin of error compared to a 25 year professional! This was a huge accomplishment and a great way to end my internship at Crowder.
Day 8
I can’t believe it is over. Today, I spent most of my day preparing for my presentation. I was able to fix my program that program and make some improvements. It took a very long time to figure out the problem and then the solution. I figured out that my program was getting stuck trying to read from the serial. I was able to fix this be sending and receiving another data type an int. This seemed to speed the process up. Otherwise, my code from yesterday was just fine. The improvements that I made the code quicker and only update the variables when the user changes them. In the afternoon, I presented those who hosted me this week. I presented both the business and technical aspects of the device. After presenting the market, the ideation and the pros and cons of each design, I demoed the user interface and LED’s. I couldn’t demo the motor because it needed 12V. I loved the experience of being at Plexus and I learned so much from everyone that I worked with. I would just like to thank everyone who took time to talk to me while I was Plexus and thank them for hosting me these past two weeks. The lessons that I have learned are invaluable.
Day 8 – Goodbyes
I was only in the office for a very short time today, as I had a two hour drive to Denver followed by my flights to get home in time to present tomorrow. Nonetheless, I spent the short time I had with Karla, who works as a data analyst. She does a lot of things with spreadsheets and coding that are far over my head, however I enjoyed her wry sense of humor. Unfortunately after a short time I had to start saying goodbyes. I gave Rick the CEO the mug from Cary Academy, and provided the others who spent a lot of time with me other gifts I purchased myself. Unfortunately, much of the team left for a trip to Pittsburgh to the HMHS home office, however I left notes for those out of office. It is bittersweet leaving the Cheyenne team and the internships in general, but several people have invited me to come back for a full summer internship at BCBSWY as well as HMHS, so I’m sure I will have the opportunity to see many people again in my future endeavors. For now, time to get home!
Day 8- The Final Frontier
As I write this a little bit of sadness looms over me as I realize that today was my last day at the office as an intern rather than a patient. Today was not particularly action packed but it was a nice ending to my time there because I got to see several patients walk out completely satisfied with smiles on their faces.
Buried in all of the routine cleanings I observed today my first case of a full set of wisdom teeth. I have seen various patients who had some or no wisdom teeth. I have slash seen patients who had wisdom teeth that were peeking through the gums in various ways and at various angles. The case I saw today was a case with all four wisdom teeth so Dr. Sims took a panoramic x-ray to see if the teeth needed to be removed. The x-ray revealed that the teeth were not currently effecting any of the other teeth in a negative manner. And although the teeth had no negative effects at this moment, Dr. Sims informed the patient that she should probably have them removed to prevent any pockets in the mouth where cavities could form. Other than the wisdom teeth in the patient’s mouth, this patient had the most perfect set of teeth that I have seen (even better than the patient yesterday!). There was not a single cavity or dark spot or crack throughout the patient’s mouth nor was there any sticky areas or discoloration. This patient came today with other family members and all of them had spotless teeth, and I was amazed at the genetics that this family had.
Before today I have seen multiple impressions be taken, whether it be for an implant or for a crown I have watched impressions be taken for all four quadrants of the mouth. Today I watched one impression and it was for a specific brand of implant. Three impressions were taken, one of the upper teeth, one of the lower, and one of the bite. I found the impressions for both the lower teeth and the bite to be interesting. The lower impression was interesting because two separate materials are used to make the impression. A thick layer is placed all over the teeth and a thin layer is placed directly over the part where the implant is. This thin layer molds into the thick layer, but because it is thin it dries in a more detailed shape to allow better precision when the implant is being made in the lab. The bite impression is also interesting because rather than it being placed into a piece of plastic and then into the mouth, it is placed directly on the teeth and molds into the bite mark in less than 15 seconds. The ease with which impressions are possible amaze me and I think what the lab is able to do with these simple impressions is amazing as well.
I would also like to shortly discuss something that I have been learning about ever since my first day at the office but I have not taken time to discuss yet: patient and doctor interaction. Dr. Sims is extremely personable and welcoming, and this is evident throughout his office. He knows every patient that walks into the office and he is always interested in what is happening in his patient’s lives. I think that this contributes to the professional relationship that is established between patient and doctor in an extremely positive manner. I have been extremely impressed with the interactions between Dr. Sims and his other employees and his patients. Within his office it is almost as if there is a small village of people who all know and help each other. This small business vibe is something that I think is extremely important in trusting health professionals and Dr. Sims is extremely successful in running a business that is strongly geared towards family.
I am so thankful for my time at Sims Family Dentistry, and I know that I learned things about dentistry and about the workplace that no textbook could ever teach me. I am glad I will be able to carry with me not only a small bit of knowledge about dentistry, but also a lot of knowledge of interacting with people. Thank you Sims Family Dentistry for being so welcoming and helpful in my journey of learning about dentistry!
PS- The radio came back on today, so it lives!!! 🙂
In the Blink of an Eye: Last Day at KW Elite
In the blink of an eye, this incredible experience was over. I knew it would go by fast, but I didn’t think that fast. Natalie and I went in this morning and showed Kristi our projects, all of which she really liked! Afterwards, we had a good conversation about her duties as an admin. As an admin, she is in charge of everything from keeping track of attorney’s files about mortgages to thank you gifts to clients. One thing she echoed (we had heard it ALOT) was the importance of getting our real estate license as a young age, because in the end it does make us more attractive to agents. Afterwards, we warned her about all the fun facets of 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, yeah you get the idea, grade. We had a heartfelt goodbye, all agreed to keep in touch, and left. It was really a great experience and gave me great insights into development, sales, administration work, and leading a team. Thank you to Kristi and all of Keller Williams Elite for helping me realize that real estate is truly where I belong!