Olivia Ernst Post #4

Did you know there are over 1,000 shades of white? Most people may not realize the white paint used in a bedroom or kitchen are studied deeply by an interior designer (or  in my case, an interior designer that is OCD about matching whites as perfectly as possible). The paint color selected for a kitchen or bathroom will have to match up with the marble selected for the island, countertop, or vanity. If the paint color doesn’t match the materials you are using, the room will feel dingy or more warm than one may prefer. On Tuesday, I helped pick flooring for a Spec House project. I began with the wood floor for the entire house then my boss gave me the opportunity to select the tile for the laundry room while my co worker selected tile for the powder bathroom. Once we had everything laid out on the table, I was given the task to look through the paint samples and find the “perfect white.” It wasn’t easy, but after looking at multiple angles and different lighting we made our final decisions for paint. Ice Cube and nebulous white were the color sample winners!

Olivia Ernst Post #3

My least favorite activity in my internship is site meetings. Although I love every moment of this job, the hot and humid NOLA summer heat + an unventilated home / no AC is quite miserable as one could expect. This morning we went on site to take measurements of walls surrounding a staircase in order to plan paneling and sconce lighting placement. This is no easy task. There is no rulebook or guideline on how to do wall paneling, so we must take measurements of every possible thing we may need to know. Some measurements include: windows, outlet, and light switch panels and accounting for their distance from the ceiling - floor - wall edges, staircase landing, step height and incline, and multiple walls (some of which may not be used, but better to take more measurements than needed rather than not enough). With paneling, you have to get creative and solve possible issues there may be before a problem even arises. Site meetings aren't all bad though, with the right group of people you'll always find something to laugh about. 

Alec Ricci Post #3

On Monday morning I started my next internship with Judge Lobrano's husband, Jay Lobrano. Mr. Jay works as a financial attorney, specializing in mainly taxes, at the Carver Darden office in Bel Chase. When I started my internship with Mr. Jay, I was given a description of a case he was currently working on. The case was about property given out in a will. Mr. Jay then explained to me what exactly he has to do regarding the property and the rules that come with cases like this. Mr. Jay had to catalog all the property left in the will and find out certain details and give descriptions about them such as: date of construction, major renovations, previous owners, and any major damage the property received. After looking over a list of all the property in the will, I helped Mr. Jay research the properties and compile a list of all the dates, damage, details, and etc. we had found. This was a strange and new experience for me, since I had no idea about the kind processes a will has to go through. This was also eye opening for me since I didn't know the role that a financial attorney could fill when it comes to objects left in wills.   

Benjamin Bone Post #3

On Monday, I arrived to the West Bank surgery center at 6:50 A.M in Harvey because Dr. Wax had surgery scheduled at 7:00. Once inside, I changed into my scrubs, masked up, put on my head cover, washed my hands, and prepared myself for another busy morning. I got to witness two carpal tunnel surgeries and then the removal of decaying bone from some woman's hand. The carpal tunnel surgeries are fairly easy and quick to complete. I got to stand right behind Dr. Wax as he makes the small incision on someone's arm. He next inserts various sized metal rods to clear the pathway for his special incision tool which has a small camera on the end. The camera allows him to see inside the transverse carpal ligament and where exactly to cut it. Once he has located it, he pulls the trigger on the tool which pops up the blade. Using the projected image on the screen from the camera, Dr. Wax was able to create the small tunnel in the precise location on the ligament, relieving the patient of their pain. For the bone removal surgery, Dr. Wax had to make a fairly large incision in the hand and take out small pieces of the bone that looked really bad and were degrading. As he took each one out, he handed me the pieces to put on the table. This is something which I had never done before! One of the first pieces he snipped went flying across the room and hit the door of the OR! This really surprised me! I should have been wearing my safety goggles! After our cases at the surgery center, we then had to drive to West Jefferson hospital for another case. This case involved a 96 year old woman who had a femoral head fracture (where the femur meets the hip). We changed into new scrubs and prepped the operating room for her surgery. Dr. Wax had to hammer rods into her leg. He used a unique instrument that allowed him to line them up in a perfect triangle. Then he slipped screws onto the rods and drilled in the screws into her femur angled up towards her hip. During the whole surgery, he used a live X-Ray machine to make sure they were going in at the proper angle. I feel good about my internship because I didn't get grossed out or queasy at all seeing all the blood and bone! The surgery was a success. For lunch, we just in the physicians' cafeteria which was actually a lot better than you would think. The rest of the afternoon we spent seeing patients at the clinic. Our morning was so busy that I didn't get a chance to get many photos, but here is a photo of me in my scrubs and then in my clinic clothes from that afternoon. We usually finish our day around 4:45-5 P.M, most of which is spent up on our feet, so I have been very exhausted when I get home everyday.

 

Cole Russell Post #4

I learned so much from my internship at RMG. RMG has an extensive network and complete understanding of the export grain trade and all the complicated details, logistics and hard work that goes into running a successful business in this field. It would take a long time and lots of hands on experience to fully understand how the export grain trade operates. It was interesting & even a little overwhelming to see all the different parts / jobs that go into it - domestic transportation, ocean vessel chartering, documentation, operations, barge tracking, barge inspection, analysis, etc. RMG, on average, handles over 25 million tons of grain per year exported from the U.S.  One of the reasons they have been so successful is because of their location at the mouth of the Mississippi. Because of the river system, RMG can export grain from about half of the 50 states. I learned that they also have an office in the Pacific Northwest. The grain that does not go to the Mississippi river is transport by rail car to the PNW & exported from there. One of my favorite days was spent on the river touring the different loading facilities along the lower Mississippi, see picture above.

Lainey Pickens Post #4

Before doing this internship, I had wanted to be an ophthalmologist, specifically a retina specialist, which is why I chose to intern at the Ochsner Eye Center. I enjoyed all of the sections of ophthalmology I saw (glaucoma, cornea, retina, neuro, pediatrics, and optometry), but my time spent in the retina department was my favorite part of the internship and only confirmed my interest in becoming a retina specialist many years in the future. 

On Tuesday, I followed a technician, Jessica, for a while in the retina department. She taught me more about how to use the slit lamp, and she even let me do a pupillary exam on a few nice patients! Later that day, I shadowed the head retina specialist, Dr. Mazzulla, as he examined patients and injected some others’ eyes. He also looked at some photos of a patient’s retina and showed me where he had done surgery to reattach it, which was very cool!

For the rest of the week, I have followed a neuro-ophthalmologist, Dr. Lawton, and observed Ms. Erica (my primary mentor) as she went through her daily job as manager of the eye center. Tomorrow, for my last day, I will shadow in retina again. All in all, I have loved this internship. I have gotten to see almost all of the different subspecialties of ophthalmology (except oculoplastics) from the perspectives of a manager, technicians, and physicians. This internship gave me a great overview of the field as a whole and made me even more enthusiastic about pursuing a career in ophthalmology. 

Aidan Bonano Blog Post #4

The next day after we fed the cells we were finally ready to test our experiment which we did use a computer with the chips monitoring the cells plugged into it. We had to use acid at different ppm's to determine which acids would sicken the cells but not kill them to simulate the conditions of a sick person on a ventilator. once we tested these we compared the results to our control subject to help determine how the ventilator affected the cell on a micro level. The results proved interesting and satisfied our needs for our overseer to move on with his projects. during this process, we had to do many tasks such as counting cells to get a rough estimate on how many cells we had in each flask. I'm happy to say this internship was very beneficial for me and has taught many valuable skills that will be useful in my pursuit for my major next year.