My Internship

I have a great feeling that during this internship I will be most successful in making connections, and spending my time wisely to shadow the different positions here. I believe that I will receive a sense of if this work field is for my future or not. I believe that the most challenging part of this internship will be picking a specific topic within Type 1 Diabetes research to create a project on. There are many different topics within Type 1 Diabetes, and choosing one may be difficult. I also believe that it will be a challenge summarizing and creating just one poster board for my whole project that I worked on in a semester. Another major challenge would be to comprehend what the research team speaks about since I have never learned many of the terminology they use, it will be hard a first to comprehend what discoveries they've found, but I will adjust as the year goes on.

I chose to apply and participate in the Life Health Sciences Internship because I wanted an experience that would expand my connections, and allow myself to grow more in a professional manner. Pertaining to this specific site of Children's Clinical Research Center, I was intrigued by the study of Type 1 Diabetes because I have already grasped a pinch of knowledge over Type 2 Diabetes, due to family diagnosing, and I was interested in learning more on the flip side about Type 1 Diabetes. I really enjoy working with this team because assignments are different on a day to day basis. One day we may have patient study visits, other days we may just be in our cubicles working on any assignments we have. Another huge plus is that Riley Children's Hospital and the other medical facilities around host amazing fundraiser events which the teams can attend!

The Diabetes Research Team located in Riley Children’s Hospital is dedicated to enrolling participants with and at risk of type 1 diabetes (T1D) into research studies. They are focused on preventing T1D and improving the lives of individuals diagnosed with the disorder. When children are asked to assent to participate in research studies it is important that they understand what is being asked of them and that they retain this information. Currently a 7-year-old child is assented the same way as a 17-year-old child, despite there being differences in cognitive maturity. My project involved making a cartoon-based video to improve the amount of information young children (7-12 years) retain regarding their potential participation in research. This video displays to the children what they would be doing if they participate in a study collecting blood and what possible risks and benefits could come from the study. I also developed an assessment to quantify how much the children understand about their study participation after viewing the video. Future research will test the video on individuals as they are recruited to quantify how much information was retained.

The cartoon-based video that I created has contributed to the process of enrolling participants into research studies. It has allowed for the recruiting process to be easier on the patients by allowing there to be much more alternatives to how the young children may be assented. This work is significant in the fact that more children will better understand the studies they will participate in.

My internship site is focused in on Type I Diabetes, and it looks into the blood biomarkers of those diagnosed and those who are not. The discussions of the biomarkers also involves the speaking of glycogen, insulin, beta cells, all of which are touched on in my courses of Biology Semester II and Physiology. Being exposed as an intern to the world of Diabetes, it made the lectures that talked about Type I Diabetes solidify the information about how the cells interact in diabetes.