Goodbyes and Opportunities

As my internship is coming to an end, I am very grateful for the opportunity that Mayo Clinic and Cornell have given me. I have learned so much and connected with so many new and interesting people throughout this journey.

Laura and Moodi in front of a famous door entrance on the Mayo Clinic campus

A photograph of Moodi and I in front of the Plummer building, a beautiful historic Mayo clinic building.

In these last few weeks, Moodi (the other Cornell intern) and I have been working often on scoring files. The major project we worked on this summer was an epidemiological study in Olmsted County, the county that Rochester, MN, is a part of. In this project, we looked for unusual muscle movement during REM sleep in people with and without confirmed REM behavior disorders. We factored into this project by going through sleep studies of each individual and marking any unusual muscle movement that we see. Because this process can be very slow, as we look through a person’s entire night of sleep in 15 second intervals, more data is still needed to draw conclusions from this study. The work never ends!

We also worked in collaboration with other sleep lab employees (one of whom is a Cornell alum!) on various other projects. This exposed us to the many applications of sleep medicine, whether it be in the study of parasomnias (unusual sleep behaviors like sleepwalking, sleep talking, dream-enactment, etc.), epilepsy, or Parkinson’s Disease. We also looked at scientific journal articles from around the world that were free to access through Mayo Clinic. In these, we were exposed to many new statistical tests and figures, many of which will be used to examine the data from the projects we have worked on!

All of us who worked together in the sleep lab have gotten to know each other very well throughout our time here. We’ve enjoyed many fun outings, and the doctor we worked under even took us out to pizza!

Laura, Moodi, and the other interns pose in the lobby of their favorite Italian restaurant

The interns in front of Victoria’s, a really delicious Italian restaurant that we loved to go to.

Laura, Moodi, and the other interns in a group selfie at the Olmstead County Fair

The interns all went to the Olmsted County Fair! It was very lively and had fun rides.

Dr. St. Louis in the middle of most of the interns in the lobby of what is apparently a pizza place

Dr. St. Louis took the team out for pizza!

This internship has given me so many opportunities for the future. I was offered a position at the Sleep Lab as possible future employment, and not only that, everyone helped me look at other jobs at Mayo Clinic that I may be interested in. It is so great to be a part of such a supportive and encouraging work environment.

Although I am happy to come home, I will miss a lot about Rochester. I loved working with my amazing team and doing research that felt very meaningful and applicable. It was wonderful to meet the patients during shadowing that were a part of the research projects and see firsthand how impactful research can be. I will miss the delicious food at Thursdays Downtown, the friends and connections I have made in the city, and even the summer thunderstorms in the city. Although I am saying goodbye, I couldn’t be happier to have been a part of this experience, and I look forward to my future feeling more well-prepared than ever.

Moodi, Laura, and Dr. St. Louis sit on the steps with the statues of the Mayo brothers outside the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo brothers founded Mayo clinic. Moodi, Dr. St. Louis, and I posed with their statues.