Wrapping Up Research
As I entered the last couple weeks of my internship at Children’s Hospital Colorado, I realized how much this internship has truly helped me discover what I am looking for in terms of my career goals and how to appreciate how experiences like this can truly shape who I am as a person and future healthcare professional. I fell in love with the field of orthopedics a few years ago after a few personal experiences with the field, and ultimately pursuing a job in orthopedics. This interest was fostered by the opportunity to spend the summer in Colorado at the Musculoskeletal Research Center at Children’s Colorado. I was able to find resolution in my desire to pursue a career as an orthopedic surgeon and was exposed to many wonderful aspects of the field as well as a few that took me by surprise. Exploring subspecialties within pediatric orthopedics–like trauma, sports medicine, and infant hip–showed me the diversity of the field and fell in love with working in pediatrics. I was taken aback by the work schedule of a few of the physicians I worked alongside on research and observed in the OR. While a very demanding career, I learned that certain orthopedic subspecialties had drastically different work-life balances than others.
Final Presentations
The last week of this internship entailed a final presentation of the work each intern conducted throughout the summer. The first couple days of this final week entailed significant preparation of the final presentations, where we were given the opportunity to run through our presentations in the auditorium that final presentations would be held in. My Research Assistant, Sarah, was such a big support in terms of helping me choose a template and giving me critiques to fit my presentation into the ten minute time limit. On presentation day, Wednesday of the final week, all the surgeons and research assistants attended the banquet hosted by the internship coordinators and the interns gave their final presentations summarizing their role on their summer research projects. I was the final intern to present, and despite uniquely playing a role on two projects I had to present on, I was able to fit my final presentation within the time limit. The orthopedic surgeons that attended asked many difficult questions, but fortunately throughout my time at Cornell, I have had ample practice delivering presentations and answering questions, so I felt prepared. Us interns then presented our joint gifts for our internship coordinators and individual gifts for our RAs and PIs, followed by photos together.
Final Goodbyes to Fellow Interns
Throughout this summer, I have had the unique opportunity to grow very close to my cohort of Musculoskeletal Research Center interns at Children’s Hospital Colorado. These five other wonderful interns have made the experience so impactful to me. Despite us all having independent roles on projects throughout the summer, we prioritized bonding as an internship cohort through meeting up outside of work to socialize. While working independently can prove to be a challenge at times, being able to socialize with the interns made the experience so enjoyable. In the final week of this internship, one of the interns graciously hosted us at her apartment and we were able to have a final game night together and reflect on our experiences this summer. We reflected on the highs and lows of the internship as well as how it affected our career aspirations. One thing we all had in common was that the internship gave us very unique insights into our next steps career-wise that were different from what we initially thought we would do pre-internship. One of the interns, for example, planned on pursuing a career in medicine, potentially orthopedics, and this internship made her realize that a career in physical therapy would be a better fit for her due to the lifestyle limitations a career as a surgeon includes. I realized that I love the field of orthopedics, but the surgeon lifestyle at Children’s Hospital Colorado definitely took me by surprise compared to other hospitals I shadowed in Iowa.
