Heather Lee
Nikta Pashai
Katherine Rudolph
Heather Lee
Email address: leeheat@umd.edu
Affiliation: Earth, Life, and Time
Title of Project: Children and Medicine, a Great Combination: Shadowing a Pediatrician
Description of Project: Heather shadowed a pediatrician over her winter break for 3 weeks. She mostly observed the pediatrician’s work, but also helped out by preparing shots and bringing things to the doctor when the doctor was with a patient. She learned the various ages for different immunizations and learned how to do a strep test.
What were the main benefits you received from doing the project?: Heather learned a lot about medicine and now wants to look more into the field of pediatrics. She is an Education major, but after seeing what it is like to be a doctor and witnessing the pros and cons, she is considering medical school as an option that she might be interested in.
What were the main pitfalls or obstacles during the development and/or undertaking of the project?: When patients came in with illnesses that Heather had never heard of before, it was frustrating because she didn’t understand what the problems were. This was the most challenging part of the project for Heather, but after the patient left, she could ask the doctor what was going on and would always get a helpful explanation.
Nikta Pashai
Email address: npashai@umd.edu
Affiliation: Earth, Life, and Time
Title of Project: St. Joseph’s Medical Center: Emergency Department’s Nurse Assistant
Description of Project: Nikta interned at St. Joseph’s Emergency Department. She followed the nurses and doctors, and since there were not many nurses and doctors available, she could help out by giving them what they needed and she was able to watch surgeries.
What were the main benefits you received from doing the project?: She is a Biology major, so she was already interested in the field, but being able to communicate with patients of different races with different illnesses was beneficial. This helped her to get a feel for what it would be like to interact with various types of people on a daily basis. She has also built relationships with some of the nurses, and they have let her help out more as they have gotten to know her better.
What were the main pitfalls or obstacles during the development and/or undertaking of the project?: The biggest challenge for Nikta was when really sick patients would come in who did not want to wait around. They were upset and emotional, so it was very hard for her to calm them down and get them to cooperate.
Katherine Rudolph
Email address: krudolph@umd.edu
Affiliation: Earth, Life, and Time
Title of Project: In Front and Behind the Scenes at the Delaware Natural History Museum
Description of Project: Katherine volunteered at the Delaware Natural History Museum. She explained the evolutionary adaptations of various organisms in different exhibits, helped categorize dead birds and mollusks, and updated the database. She also helped out at the Philadelphia Zoo, where she showed how live birds are the natural descendants of dinosaurs.
What were the main benefits you received from doing the project?: Katherine was taught the reality of working in a museum. She learned about the balance between research and education, which is always being tested, and about the necessity of properly maintained collections for research.
What were the main pitfalls or obstacles during the development and/or undertaking of the project?: The major challenge that she faced was being able to create an environment that gives the general public solid scientific information regarding the most important tenants of natural history, while keeping their attention at the same time.