Vienna plus Reports
Biology, Medicine, VetMed Studies
Nolan McCrary @ Dr. Eva Eisenhofer MD, & Thinkubator Spring 24
Background
I am a Biology major at the University of Illinois planning on going to med school. The reason why I chose shadowing at Dr. Eisenhofer's is that I am going to med school after my undergraduate years. The reason why I chose Thinkubator was because my plan, if I don't go to med school, is to go into teaching ecology. I thought it would be helpful to be exposed to the business side of ecology.
Internship
My internships included Thinkubator and shadowing Dr. Eva Eisenhofer, a general practitioner in Vienna. Thinkubator is a sustainability consulting company that consults companies on sustainability. There, I wrote a research paper about different models of circular business models.
Takeaways
I learned to be punctual to meetings, gained insightful knowledge on how to manage my time properly, and how to better interact with a team of people. These will help me later in my career, especially while working in medicine!
In conclusion, my internships provided well-rounded experiences: Thinkubator exposed me to the business of sustainability and shadowing Dr. Eisenhofer solidified my interest in medicine. These experiences honed my professionalism and teamwork skills, preparing me for a successful career, particularly in the fast-paced world of medicine.
Advice for future Vienna Plus students
They should explore and work in new fields that they haven't before. They should definitely choose Vienna Plus because this is an invaluable opportunity to experience a new culture and their work settings.
Luis Eguiguren @ VetMedUni Wien Fall 22
Background
My background dabbles foremost in biology, although I’ve never learned about reproductive biology or mammalian biology in such depth before this internship. I thought it would be a great way to learn more about the field, and especially get up close and personal with the subjects of many pharmaceutical experiments and tests to understand how we actually gain information from working with them. It is quite eye opening how much we can learn despite humans and mice being so different in size and shape.
Internship
My internship took place at the Veterinary Medicine University of Vienna, Austria. More specifically, I joined Priv. Doz. Dr. Kerstin E. Auer, (PhD), as well as graduate student Sophia Tan in researching the reproductive biology of lab mice, and how best to conduct in-vitro fertilization and embryo transfers.
Takeaways
I believe I learned how to communicate and speak up for what I thought better in the internship, and to actively listen and understand as best as I could despite being quite new to the field. Truly, this internship’s challenges strengthened me on the other side and prepared me for other scientific work down the line. My main takeaway? To be a scientist, or conduct any sort of meaningful work, you have to care about your team, and be kind.
