Week 1:
Introduction to Research

June 2, 2019

I started my first week at the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research this week. I found out about this opportunity by simply reaching out to the director of research at the facility and, after a few emails, she was more than happy to offer me a position. This experience will give me some prime research opportunities that I can hopefully continue during the next academic year within my capstone project or perhaps within an independent research class. Besides helping me achieve my overall career goals of becoming a chiropractor, this experience will hopefully give me connections to doctors and other members of staff that may help me get a foot in the door to Palmer Chiropractic College, or possibly other graduate or chiropractic schools  This internship interests me because it will give me the opportunity to be a part of potentially ground-breaking research with the potential to help many people. I will also be able to grow in the field that I love and want to be a part of, while allowing me to get a sense for what a possible job in the field of chiropractics may be like, and if it is definitely the career path for me.

My first week in Davenport, IA at the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research (PCCR) on the Palmer College of Chiropractors campus was filled with a lot of introductions, some paperwork to fill out, a tour of Palmer to sign more paperwork, getting an I.D. badge and security codes, and learning about the research projects I am going to be observing during my time at the PCCR. They also gave me my own office, which came in handy because I have had to study and review a lot of neuroscience in order to understand the project. I cannot go into specifics since one project that I will be observing is still ongoing, but what I can say is that it is a project basically looking at chiropractic care and analgesia (the inability to feel pain).

This week while I was doing observations of the project from start to finish, I watched a certain type of behavior test where scientists mix chemicals, rinse and refill trays, and mark tubes for later parts of the study. Later in the week I was able to look through a microscope at different tissues that are important to the project, which made it a lot easier to picture what was going on during the procedure, instead of being told what they were doing and what was happening without any visual representation. Closer to the end of the week, one of the scientists brought me up to the lab area where they check the staining of tissues on microscope slides and he showed me how they use their complex fluorescent microscope which is attached to a computer to take pictures of the slides. That same scientist also showed me the cutting machine they use to cut tissues at a microscopic level. In the coming week, the scientists explained to me how they will teach me how to use this cutting machine and learn how to stain the slides to look at specific tissues.

At the end of this week, I attended an event on Palmer’s campus called the State of the Center Address that is put on by the PCCR to showcase achievements and allow researchers to talk about the projects they have completed and are still working on. It was an amazing event and it gave me the opportunity to see everything that is being done here at the research center.