My Internship

Instrument Assisted Soft Tissue Manipulation(IASTM) is a form of manual therapy used for musculoskeletal recovery treatment. In this research study, male and female clinicians of varying experience tested two devices linked with a software that produced real time results of the amount of force clinicians applied during different strokes of quantifiable soft tissue manipulation. One device (Q1) applied local force and the second device (Q2) applied dispersive force. Two strokes were used for data collection, a linear stroke and a curved stroke. The devices were tested in three regions of the body. The thoracic lumbar region, thigh, and calf. The Qware software used in the protocol collected force data regarding to the x, y, and z fields. For this project, data from the software was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively to see how linear and curve strokes compare in different regions of the body to determine if from the graphs you can determine what stroke the clinician is using.  

Through this opportunity, I have been able to grow skills involving professionalism, time management, and organization. I have developed these skills through active learning and hands-on experiences. 

From this internship, I have gained experience working in research from a clinical perspective but also from an engineering perspective. Along with this, I have had the opportunity to explore what careers in physical therapy and engineering could look like. 

In this internship, I really enjoyed being able to conduct research from both a clinical and engineering perspective. Approaching research in this manner taught me a lot about both fields and how these fields work together.  I have along with this, I enjoyed learning about the dynamics of a research lab in terms of team member jobs and how research is able to be funded and conducted.  

My internship fits with what I am learning in my major by incorporating skills and topics I have learned in class or will learn in class, in real-time research and application. Specifically, my internship has shown me how forces acting in the x, y, and z field help with the analysis of data.  My internship has helped me gain a deeper understanding of my coursework by allowing me to see how what I am learning in class is applied in research.

In my internship, I have seen many behaviors, actions, and skills that display professionalism and what it means to be a teammate. Some of these would be active listening, treating everyone in the lab as an equal, respecting each other's opinions, and providing opportunities for productive discussion. As a professional and a teammate, I would like to grow in terms of time management and planning. 

From working in my internship, I have been able to learn about different communities, majors, and levels of education. My internship team is made up of DPT students, an engineer, another undergraduate intern, and a student in a master's program. From this group, I have been able to learn about how different areas of academia approach data analysis. I have also learned about the importance of respect in the workplace and how having diversity allows for research that will better serve the public.

My internship experience has been different than what I was expecting in a few ways. The first way that I have done a lot of my work remotely. The second way is that I have had a lot of freedom to conduct analysis in a way that has allowed me to make the task I have been given my own. I have greatly enjoyed the way my internship experience was structured. I found that the structure worked well with balancing my course work with the research. 

As an intern, I have had a few successes. One success specifically would be on the data analysis spreadsheet I have been working on this semester. The spreadsheet that I have been working on has provided a visual of some of the data that was collected in my lab. This spreadsheet has been possible through collaboration with my primary investigator and the engineer that works in my lab. Another success I had was helping my team develop criteria for the Q1 device that will be used to identify what stroke was being conducted by a clinician based on the stroke pattern graphs 

The most challenging part of my experience has been time management. This school year was my first time doing school full-time while also working part-time. This experience has been a learning curve for me. I've had to learn how to incorporate time for work into my schedule. The biggest challenge with this has been being productive enough to get my homework done so I would have time to do work for my internship. To help with time management, I scheduled specific times during the week when I would spend time working for my internship. I think doing this allowed me to manage my time better, thus allowing me to complete my task more productively.