I was fortunate enough to hear about this experience through the Dimensions program at Cornell. Every year, Cornell is granted the opportunity to send one student intern to work at Children’s Hospital Colorado (CHCO) to do research with the Musculoskeletal Research Center (MRC) in the Orthopedics Institute. Due to my interest in orthopedics, I knew when I heard about this internship that I would have to apply when the time was right. Fortunately, this year, Dimensions had a very competitive applicant pool and was able to select both Ella McLaughlin and I after a series of interviews early this spring. I was truly overcome with gratitude when I received my acceptance email, and I know I wouldn’t be here without all the support from my peers and the faculty at Cornell. The Dimensions program and Berry Career Institute were especially helpful throughout my application and onboarding process.
After we were selected, Ella and I decided to live together in a furnished house we’d found for rent about two miles from the hospital. Having Ella by my side throughout this process has been incredibly helpful, and she has made the entire move significantly less stressful. I am so excited for all that this experience will bring me, and I hope my contributions to the program are appreciated as well.
After a bittersweet goodbye to Iowa and a ten-hour drive to Colorado, I officially made it to my home for the next two months very late Saturday night. I moved all my stuff into the house after arriving and then spent most of Sunday morning unpacking and organizing my stuff. After that, I took a trip up to Evergreen to explore and see the sights with my boyfriend, Carson. Evergreen was absolutely beautiful and I even got to see some elk! I imagine I’ll be spending quite a bit of time up there. After our day was up, I returned to Aurora and got all my things ready in anticipation for the real start of my summer.
The first elk I saw, right in Carson’s front yard in Evergreen!On Monday morning at 8 am, Ella and I officially started as summer interns at CHCO! Day one started with meeting the other interns and getting a tour of the hospital. The 4 other interns are from various states and applied outside of Cornell’s applicant pool. The first week was pretty anticlimatic as we had to work through all the orientation and onboarding procedures, but because Ella and I are technically volunteers and are not paid, we had a few more hoops to jump through than the other interns. After many emails and calls to our mentors and the IT department, we finally got ourselves authorized as non-employees and were able to begin our online trainings and literature reviews.
The bright and beautiful lobby as you walk into Children’s. I was also introduced to my research assistant (RA), Andy Lalka, principle investigator (PI), Dr. Sarah Sibbel, and the project they would have me working on this summer. I specifically will be doing chart reviews and collecting data to investigate different treatment outcomes in distal humerus fractures in adolescents. Considering I am not particularly familiar with fractures, I have spent a decent amount of time familiarizing myself with the background and surrounding literature regarding treatment of these fractures in both children and adults. So far, I have found the topic very interesting and am looking forward to all I will learn over these next 10 weeks!
Working in the intern designated conference roomsMy education at Cornell has greatly prepared me for this experience. I can confidently read, understand, review, and assess literature because of classes such as biochemistry, anatomy, and genetics. I also have a strong understanding of the general research process because of my experience in the Cornell Summer Research Institute last summer and feel confident in my ability to transfer those skills seamlessly into this internship. I know that my research skills will only be strengthened as I learn more about and actually get to participate in clinical research.
Overall, I know this internship will provide me with an important understanding of the impact that clinical research has on modern medical practice. This understanding is something that will be necessary for me to have as I strive towards becoming a physician myself. I also know that it will prepare me to be a well-rounded and capable medical student here soon.
It will also provide me with an amazing knowledge base surrounding orthopedics. Because orthopedics is the field that I’m most interested in pursuing, I know this experience will be incomparable. As interns, we are guaranteed 20 hours of shadowing, which I know will be great experience as I attempt to map out where I’d like medicine to take me!
Ella and the inspirational sidewalk art outside the cafeteria