I was interested in finding an internship at the Houston medical center because of my interest in biomedical engineering and my background as a volunteer in a laparoscopic/robotic research program at the medical center during my middle school years. During that project I was taught how to do actual surgery. I decided to contact Professor Ioannis Pavlidis at the Computational Physiology Lab at the University of Houston because he was one of the principle investigators of my middle school project at MITIE: Houston Methodist Institute for Technology, Innovation & Education.
Read more about the University of Houston Computational Physiology Lab:
http://cpl.uh.edu
Read more about Houston Institute for Technology, Innovation & Education MITIE:
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/for-health-professionals/department-programs/mitie
Professor Pavlidis helped me connect with my to-be boss, Professor Mark Garbey, who works at the Methodist Hospital, Center for Computational surgery.
Read more about the Center for Computational Surgery at the Methodist Hospital:
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/health-professionals/departments-centers/center-for-computational-surgery/
Thursday, July 13th, 2017
This week, I had a tuberculosis test, which took a few attempts. I also had drug test. Both tests came back clean and I was fine. I was almost ready to work. Then I went down to the volunteer office and got my badge and took a lengthy track to have my picture taken for the badge.
Today, I was at the Methodist Hospital Volunteer department for orientation and safety training. Everyone who comes to work at Methodist as a volunteer or intern goes through a thorough background check, health check and training program. By now I have gone through a thorough health screening, TWO tuberculosis tests and a background check to get my Methodist identification card.
Now I am officially a registered intern for the computational surgery lab. I was a bit disappointed about the bureaucracy of the volunteer organization but we got through everything alright.
In the evening I had the last meeting of the orientation period. I learned a bit about how the Methodist Hospital works; what are some of the important policies (including dress code) and some history of the hospital. At the end everyone said some things about themselves. I was the youngest in the room, I found out.
Monday, July 17th, 2017
Today, I participated in my first departmental meeting led by Professor Garbey. I arrived on at the Smith Tower meeting area. Nobody else was in the meeting because I was about half an hour early. A few minutes later a few people came in and spoke in French and shook my hand and joked about me stealing Stefan’s seat. Ten minutes later after most people had arrived the boss arrived. He introduced me to the whole team. He started talking about what I was supposed to be doing, a few conferences in France and Italy. Then they started talking about what they had been doing and how I could help.
At the end of the meeting I was given my supervisor Andrea Panaccio, a graduate student from Italy visiting the Center for the summer. I was told to come in a few days later once my internship had been finalized and start working.
This meeting was odd, I was immediately hit with a sense of camaraderie when the meeting began, everyone was cheerful and lighthearted, joking around and just generally being happy. This caught me off guard, I’m used to boring uneventful meetings where people just sit around listening to somebody say nothing of importance for an hour. This one felt like the people there were interested in their work.
Monday, July 31st, 2017
When I got to work this morning, Mr. Panaccio told me about his project which was a machine that would monitor laparoscopic tool movement. He had already used it to demonstrate a significant difference between experienced and novice surgeons. But he wanted to use this technology to send information about how the surgery was going what stage the surgery was in, what tools was used and other things that relate to surgery in progress.
He showed me to my new desk and showed the tool on offer and gave me my first real task. My first task was that I had to line up these plus signs on the ceiling with various images so that accurate data could be taken. It was a rather monumental task. There were a few hundred images per folder. And approximately 6-10 folders per surgeon. I spent the rest of day on that task.
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017
I arrived early enough to get myself some breakfast. Upon finishing I headed up to the office. I was told that my supervisor was not coming in but I was glad that I already had a task I could focused on. A few hundred images I just had aligned suddenly came unaligned by some glitch in the code that I could not identify by myself. That was the end of that day.
This is me leaving work:
Friday, August 5th, 2017
My supervisor showed back up today. I continued to work on the image project. But he informed me that I could use some of the time to learn MatLab.
For more about MatLab, read:
https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html
So I looked some tutorials and I also looked at some of his coding projects relating to his current medical project.
This was also the first day I had lunch with my co-workers. It was weird because they are all older than me but I am also taller than them. Food was good. They told some entertaining stories. But I left before everybody else because they wanted to get coffee and I don’t drink coffee and wanted to get back to work.
Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
Today I mostly spent learning more MatLab. I am starting to get a hang of the software and I am starting to be able to grasp how Panaccio’s code works. I worked more on the MatLab and the image project today. We also had a meeting. This meeting was very much like the previous one. Garbey is a very charismatic guy. Everyone was very attentive. They were mainly talking about their plans to go give talks in France.
Thursday, August 10th, 2017
Today I worked more on MatLab stuff. I started to code things. It did not go very well. There were many mistakes and I didn’t really get the notation down, but I started to write basic program.
Here is an example of what MatLab code looks like:
I also kept working on the image program but there was another coding error that caused me to lose some of my work. I could not identify it and asked my mentor, who identified the problem in five minutes. I suppose part of the reason why his code was difficult to understand was because all his notes were in Italian. So on one hand I had to understand statements like “len = length (vals);” and on the other I had to figure out what his notes said because they were all in Italian.
Monday, August 14th. 2017
Today I suppose was my last day at the Methodist as a summer intern. We had a code meeting. I worked only half a day because I had a volunteer appreciation party to attend. We watched Air Bud, played some games and ate food. They took a picture of all of us. I stuck out like a sore thumb because I was not wearing the uniform (I was not required to) and I was about a head taller than anybody else. Working at Methodist was fun. I got to see what a nine to five job feels like although I am sure that it was much more fun than a normal job. It was a little bit strange because I did not expect that going to work would be fun. People there were fun. The material I was working on was interesting. And I felt like I had an actual goal to work towards. It was actually quite nice. It was stable and entertaining at the same time. I can only hope that I will find a job like this in the future.
Friday, February 2nd, 2018
This is my last entry to the Methodist internship blog. Several months have passed since my summer internship ended and I have had time to reflect on the experience.
What strengths did I identify in myself and what areas did I develop for growth?
I realized that working a job was tolerable. I learned I could think of good ideas that could benefit the group as a whole. Previously I was not aware of my ability to make good suggestions. I learned that I was able to focus for many hours at the time. I have not been able to this before – especially for school work.
I learned some skills in MatLab. I learned new skills in MatLab.
What challenges did I undertake? What new skills did I develop in the process?
Waking up in the morning. Especially in the summer I am not used to waking up early. Talking to people. I am really, really bad at talking to people whether it is talking about a problem I have; asking them questions; or even just conversing with them in casual social occasions.
How did I demonstrate how to initiate and plan fieldwork experience?
I learned that I have to start a bit earlier. It was not easy getting this internship considering that I totally missed the window for it. Even though it was way overdue I decided to shoot an e-mail to a guy who knew a guy at Methodist and despite of me not having talked with either of them in four years, it worked, somehow.
How did I show commitment to and perseverance in a fieldwork experience?
I showed up as often as I could even with my extremely busy schedule last summer. I showed up for as many hours as I could at each time.
How did I demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively?
Working collaboratively allows you to ask for help when needed. As much as it is difficult for me to ask for help, it is, well, helpful.
How did I demonstrate engagement with issue of global significance?
The result of the research I was helping with would be constant information sent from the operating room to staff once the operation is on: what is needed and if there are complications etc.
Read more about the University of Houston Computational Physiology Lab:
http://cpl.uh.edu
Read more about Houston Institute for Technology, Innovation & Education MITIE:
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/for-health-professionals/department-programs/mitie
Professor Pavlidis helped me connect with my to-be boss, Professor Mark Garbey, who works at the Methodist Hospital, Center for Computational surgery.
Read more about the Center for Computational Surgery at the Methodist Hospital:
http://www.houstonmethodist.org/health-professionals/departments-centers/center-for-computational-surgery/
Thursday, July 13th, 2017
This week, I had a tuberculosis test, which took a few attempts. I also had drug test. Both tests came back clean and I was fine. I was almost ready to work. Then I went down to the volunteer office and got my badge and took a lengthy track to have my picture taken for the badge.
Today, I was at the Methodist Hospital Volunteer department for orientation and safety training. Everyone who comes to work at Methodist as a volunteer or intern goes through a thorough background check, health check and training program. By now I have gone through a thorough health screening, TWO tuberculosis tests and a background check to get my Methodist identification card.
Now I am officially a registered intern for the computational surgery lab. I was a bit disappointed about the bureaucracy of the volunteer organization but we got through everything alright.
In the evening I had the last meeting of the orientation period. I learned a bit about how the Methodist Hospital works; what are some of the important policies (including dress code) and some history of the hospital. At the end everyone said some things about themselves. I was the youngest in the room, I found out.
Monday, July 17th, 2017
Today, I participated in my first departmental meeting led by Professor Garbey. I arrived on at the Smith Tower meeting area. Nobody else was in the meeting because I was about half an hour early. A few minutes later a few people came in and spoke in French and shook my hand and joked about me stealing Stefan’s seat. Ten minutes later after most people had arrived the boss arrived. He introduced me to the whole team. He started talking about what I was supposed to be doing, a few conferences in France and Italy. Then they started talking about what they had been doing and how I could help.
At the end of the meeting I was given my supervisor Andrea Panaccio, a graduate student from Italy visiting the Center for the summer. I was told to come in a few days later once my internship had been finalized and start working.
This meeting was odd, I was immediately hit with a sense of camaraderie when the meeting began, everyone was cheerful and lighthearted, joking around and just generally being happy. This caught me off guard, I’m used to boring uneventful meetings where people just sit around listening to somebody say nothing of importance for an hour. This one felt like the people there were interested in their work.
Monday, July 31st, 2017
When I got to work this morning, Mr. Panaccio told me about his project which was a machine that would monitor laparoscopic tool movement. He had already used it to demonstrate a significant difference between experienced and novice surgeons. But he wanted to use this technology to send information about how the surgery was going what stage the surgery was in, what tools was used and other things that relate to surgery in progress.
He showed me to my new desk and showed the tool on offer and gave me my first real task. My first task was that I had to line up these plus signs on the ceiling with various images so that accurate data could be taken. It was a rather monumental task. There were a few hundred images per folder. And approximately 6-10 folders per surgeon. I spent the rest of day on that task.
Wednesday, August 2nd, 2017
I arrived early enough to get myself some breakfast. Upon finishing I headed up to the office. I was told that my supervisor was not coming in but I was glad that I already had a task I could focused on. A few hundred images I just had aligned suddenly came unaligned by some glitch in the code that I could not identify by myself. That was the end of that day.
This is me leaving work:
Friday, August 5th, 2017
My supervisor showed back up today. I continued to work on the image project. But he informed me that I could use some of the time to learn MatLab.
For more about MatLab, read:
https://www.mathworks.com/products/matlab.html
So I looked some tutorials and I also looked at some of his coding projects relating to his current medical project.
This was also the first day I had lunch with my co-workers. It was weird because they are all older than me but I am also taller than them. Food was good. They told some entertaining stories. But I left before everybody else because they wanted to get coffee and I don’t drink coffee and wanted to get back to work.
Tuesday, August 8th, 2017
Today I mostly spent learning more MatLab. I am starting to get a hang of the software and I am starting to be able to grasp how Panaccio’s code works. I worked more on the MatLab and the image project today. We also had a meeting. This meeting was very much like the previous one. Garbey is a very charismatic guy. Everyone was very attentive. They were mainly talking about their plans to go give talks in France.
Thursday, August 10th, 2017
Today I worked more on MatLab stuff. I started to code things. It did not go very well. There were many mistakes and I didn’t really get the notation down, but I started to write basic program.
Here is an example of what MatLab code looks like:
I also kept working on the image program but there was another coding error that caused me to lose some of my work. I could not identify it and asked my mentor, who identified the problem in five minutes. I suppose part of the reason why his code was difficult to understand was because all his notes were in Italian. So on one hand I had to understand statements like “len = length (vals);” and on the other I had to figure out what his notes said because they were all in Italian.
Monday, August 14th. 2017
Today I suppose was my last day at the Methodist as a summer intern. We had a code meeting. I worked only half a day because I had a volunteer appreciation party to attend. We watched Air Bud, played some games and ate food. They took a picture of all of us. I stuck out like a sore thumb because I was not wearing the uniform (I was not required to) and I was about a head taller than anybody else. Working at Methodist was fun. I got to see what a nine to five job feels like although I am sure that it was much more fun than a normal job. It was a little bit strange because I did not expect that going to work would be fun. People there were fun. The material I was working on was interesting. And I felt like I had an actual goal to work towards. It was actually quite nice. It was stable and entertaining at the same time. I can only hope that I will find a job like this in the future.
Friday, February 2nd, 2018
This is my last entry to the Methodist internship blog. Several months have passed since my summer internship ended and I have had time to reflect on the experience.
What strengths did I identify in myself and what areas did I develop for growth?
I realized that working a job was tolerable. I learned I could think of good ideas that could benefit the group as a whole. Previously I was not aware of my ability to make good suggestions. I learned that I was able to focus for many hours at the time. I have not been able to this before – especially for school work.
I learned some skills in MatLab. I learned new skills in MatLab.
What challenges did I undertake? What new skills did I develop in the process?
Waking up in the morning. Especially in the summer I am not used to waking up early. Talking to people. I am really, really bad at talking to people whether it is talking about a problem I have; asking them questions; or even just conversing with them in casual social occasions.
How did I demonstrate how to initiate and plan fieldwork experience?
I learned that I have to start a bit earlier. It was not easy getting this internship considering that I totally missed the window for it. Even though it was way overdue I decided to shoot an e-mail to a guy who knew a guy at Methodist and despite of me not having talked with either of them in four years, it worked, somehow.
How did I show commitment to and perseverance in a fieldwork experience?
I showed up as often as I could even with my extremely busy schedule last summer. I showed up for as many hours as I could at each time.
How did I demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively?
Working collaboratively allows you to ask for help when needed. As much as it is difficult for me to ask for help, it is, well, helpful.
How did I demonstrate engagement with issue of global significance?
The result of the research I was helping with would be constant information sent from the operating room to staff once the operation is on: what is needed and if there are complications etc.
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