My Internship

My internship is with Dr. Andrea Shin, a gastroenterologist. She has been working on several studies the last few years dealing with the gut and its microbiome. One of the studies I will be placed on is called the Fecal Bile Acid study. The big picture of this study is finding the correlation of fat content in a person's diet to the amount of bile acid in their stool sample. Patients are given a food survey which covers their diet patterns over the course of a year. They are then given a packet with food suggestions on what to eat for 4 days in order to hit a certain fat goal each day. The patients track their diet then give a stool sample and the stool sample is analyzed for the bile acid content. Healthy patients as well as patients with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) are analyzed. The purpose of this study is to see what IBS patients lack as opposed to healthy patients, or how they differ.

I chose this internship mainly because my own stomach issues have peaked my interest in what all affects our GI tract and how certain foods and environmental factors play a role in that. I love the flexibility of this internship and the variety of environments and people I get to work with. Dr. Shin has vocalized her want of me being a part of the entire process from entering data in the office, to patient screening on zoom, to meeting with patients in the hospital and getting their stool samples. Due to COVID-19 policies I have not been able to enter the hospital and will likely not be able to with the direction things are moving. My internship has been flexible and Dr. Shin has adjusted my involvement accordingly.

This site will build my professional communication skills as I will be working with various doctors and coordinators as well as patients directly. I will also learn how to analyze large groups of data and apply it to the world around us. Using REDCap, I will learn how to create tools that organize mass groups of data, allowing ease of data entry.

I have learned how to communicate with both Dr. Shin and my coordinator, Alka. I let them know when I am available to work and they let me know if someone will be available for me to come to the office. I learned how to be flexible when things don't go according to plan. I was on track to have my food diary data finished by the end of November in time to submit to DDW so my name was able to be on an abstract. When someone accidentally deleted my work I tried my best to start over and finish in time but it indeed did not work out. Dr. Shin worked with me to get another project out quickly in time to submit to conference. I have learned my way around REDCap and taught myself how to analyze and organize different groups of data which may correlate or be completely separate. All these skills can be used both in personal and professional life throughout my future college career as well as professional career.

My contributions to the Fecal Bile Acid study will be filtering through patient files to see who does and does not have a food diary available to analyze. I will also learn how to navigate REDCap, a data entry and analysis tool. Using REDCap I will enter each patient's food diary individually and break down their diet into macros (fats, carbohydrates, calories, starches, proteins). This study was supposed to be completed in time to be submitted to DDW but there was a hiccup in the process. Someone on the project who had complete access to the REDCap project deleted my work close to the deadline for DDW. I worked hard to try and catch up as well as finish the work still needed to complete

I also cross checked on an IBS Nutrition comparison study for which an abstract was created and Dr. Shin sent it to DDW. This study was created to find out if IBS patients lack nutrients which healthy patients are able to consume without dietary restrictions. It was concluded that IBS patients indeed do not lack hardly anything in comparison to healthy patients despite the dietary restrictions.

Once I finish the Fecal Bile Acid Study I will be placed on a new study.

This internship has helped me understand how diet affects things health related and how different levels of health or underlying conditions can affect the same outcome in two different people (one healthy and one with an underlying condition). This can tie into chemistry and biology. The chemicals of one's gut mixing with certain foods can cause adverse reactions. One's genetic makeup and/or environment could cause this chemical situation to express itself. This can also tie into Psychology, to an extent, explaining how one's environment can affect their microbiome (gut) health negatively.