Week 1

I began my summer research internship with the Emergency Department at Penn State Hershey Medical Center on Monday, May 14th. I am one of 12 students taking part in the Emergency Department Summer Research Program, but I am the only undergraduate student. Everybody else is a medical student. 

After some introductory meetings during the first few days, I have been assigned to work with a first year medical student on a longitudinal study assessing a new technique of teaching CPR. This technique was developed last year by medical students in the same research program I am in, and their study showed impressive immediate results. The long term benefits, however, are unknown. That's where my project comes in. 

The medical student I am working with, Peter, and I are very efficient with our work. We had our research proposal submitted or Institutional Review Board approval by Wednesday and still haven't heard back about it yet. In the meantime, I have done a lit search on longitudinal chest compression studies and have learned a lot about REDCap, a research database that we will be using for the study. 

Peter and I have taken on an additional project too. We will be developing the REDCap database for a three year airway study being done by the Emergency Department. This study will develop a new training method using two-way audio visual communication between an airway expert (emergency room physician or anesthesiologist) and the person being trained. Individual training videos of the intubation will also be created for further training purposes. 

I'm very happy with my internship, and I've only had seven days of work so far. I'm very appreciative of this experience, and am thankful for Dr. Thomas Terndrup, the chair of the Emergency Department at Penn State Hershey and a 1977 Juniata graduate, for allowing me to have this experience.