My Summer in Texas
Well, I haven't been near a PC much this summer, at least one that can go onto livejournal. army PC's at work have tight security, not just b/c they don't want employees having fun on the clock, but also for security, G-d forbid I post top secret info on a blog or something. Well, for those who don't know, I got this internship by going to the dentist in January. I really didn't think it would pull through but after a teleconference with my future mentors in March, it sure enough did. I really didn't know what to expect, only that they worked with stem cells and burn victims and combat casualty care. That's basically the mission of the ISR, combat casualty care research. ISR stands for Institute of Surgical Research and it's at BAMC (pronounced BAM see) Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. The buildings are located on Fort Sam Houston, so it's not the same zip as SA and gas and food are cheaper. Well, half the people at ISR are military, half are civilian/veterans. Dr. Bob is a contractor for the army and does soft tissue research which basically are stem cells. I'm growing stem cells under his guidence and maybe next week, when they've grown enough, I can western blot them, yay! For months I've just been feeding cells, killing them, feeding and differnetiating. Differentiate means I select a certain group, adipose in this case, by feeding media that will only grow adipose. I learned alot from this. I also got to rat sit for a doctor's project on trauma, can't get into more detail but it was fun taking notes on the rats and learning about their behavior. This was the second week in the lab, I also helped prep cultures after the rats expired. I was getting bored just working with cells because it doesn't take more than an hour to do every other day, so Dr. Bob said "be grateful, you don't have a deadline by the end of the summer to present all your results. You can just wander and watch what everyone is doing at ISR, so you'll learn everything but won't be an expert in any one thing." Well, after a day of doing that I realized that meant sitting around waiting for someone to ask for an assistant and I immediately told Dr. Bob "Nope, I want another project."
The dentist is married to my "on paper boss" by that I mean he's my official supervisor but I work with three scientists really. I recieved an e-mail following my decision to do a second project "can you meet me at 1500 on Friday?" When I entered his office with Dr. Bob, there sat a man I'd only seen at Friday morning meetings. We actually (we being the group of undergrad interns) used to make fun of his slow speech and mannerisms. Colonel Easy turned out to be quite an accomplished orthropedic surgeon for the army and Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the past 2 years he's spent 6 mos at a time in Iraq treating victims of IED explosions, Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, contractors, Korean soldiers, everyone in IRaq who needed medical help, he treated. He even took before and after pictures of the patients. He's an amazing guy, won't brag, low key, will do three things at once and you won't even know it. When he's not at conferences internationally, he's working in the local ER, BAMC Trauma (next door) or doing work on his PC in the office (only time I get to see him) or checking up on me when I'm reviewing patient charts for his research. I, as of the meeting, am his research assistant, and I am honored to be part of the NObel Prize winning research he's working on. Once again, the work is OPSEC (operation secret). I collect data from patient charts, following their treatment in Iraq and see what complications they faced after surgery in Iraq. Some went to BAMC, some to Walter Reed, all transferred to Lundsthal MC in Germany before coming to the States. The army certainly took care of these soldiers. I finished collecting data from soldiers at BAMC now I need clearance to look at records from the rest of the military hospitals.
I'll finish up this report later, library is closing soon.
Toodles,
Hippo
The dentist is married to my "on paper boss" by that I mean he's my official supervisor but I work with three scientists really. I recieved an e-mail following my decision to do a second project "can you meet me at 1500 on Friday?" When I entered his office with Dr. Bob, there sat a man I'd only seen at Friday morning meetings. We actually (we being the group of undergrad interns) used to make fun of his slow speech and mannerisms. Colonel Easy turned out to be quite an accomplished orthropedic surgeon for the army and Operation Iraqi Freedom. For the past 2 years he's spent 6 mos at a time in Iraq treating victims of IED explosions, Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, contractors, Korean soldiers, everyone in IRaq who needed medical help, he treated. He even took before and after pictures of the patients. He's an amazing guy, won't brag, low key, will do three things at once and you won't even know it. When he's not at conferences internationally, he's working in the local ER, BAMC Trauma (next door) or doing work on his PC in the office (only time I get to see him) or checking up on me when I'm reviewing patient charts for his research. I, as of the meeting, am his research assistant, and I am honored to be part of the NObel Prize winning research he's working on. Once again, the work is OPSEC (operation secret). I collect data from patient charts, following their treatment in Iraq and see what complications they faced after surgery in Iraq. Some went to BAMC, some to Walter Reed, all transferred to Lundsthal MC in Germany before coming to the States. The army certainly took care of these soldiers. I finished collecting data from soldiers at BAMC now I need clearance to look at records from the rest of the military hospitals.
I'll finish up this report later, library is closing soon.
Toodles,
Hippo