My MCAT preparations are well under way at this point, with my new exam date scheduled for July 18th! I’ve started to go in depth on practice exams and question packs. Studying for the MCAT is part of my daily schedule. I’m nervous for the exam, but I’m confident that all of my preparations will pay off. I’ll be sure to post an update after my test as well, so stay tuned!
Today I just received official notification for my summer internship with Rugby Research and Injury Prevention Group. The organization is based in New York, but works around the globe with international organizations and teams. They are a not for profit organization that focuses on sports medicine and injury surveillance in rugby athletes. They have professionals with varying backgrounds in orthopedics, sports medicine, statistics, athletic training, nutrition and more.
This morning we had our first introductory meeting over Zoom. I met Som, the summer fellow who I will communicate with throughout the summer. Additionally, I spoke with Dr. Victor Lopez Jr., the executive director for RRIPG. This opportunity will be everything I decide to make of it, and I cannot wait to get started in the next few weeks.
As of now, my first assignment will be testing my Python skills. There is a set of cost data that Dr. Lopez asked me to take a look at and begin evaluating. Other than this initial assignment, however, the projects and direction in which my research will go this summer are still up in the air. Can’t wait to get assigned to more projects!
This past semester in the Fall of 2019 I took an advanced methods course in psychology for my neuroscience major. Dr. Brindle taught the class, and we centered our research around interoception. I decided to investigate the relationship between interoception and proprioception in two samples at Washington and Lee: athletes and non-athletes. I found nearly significant results (p = 0.11)! Athletes appeared to have a higher positive correlation between interoceptive accuracy and proprioceptive accuracy, as I had predicted. Considering we had a small sample size of just over 20 participants, it’s awesome that we found these results. Our effect sizes were relatively large as well.
The course was new at Washington and Lee this year, but I think it’s an excellent addition to the curriculum for the neuroscience major. I can’t wait to see what the lab studies next year, and I wish that I could take the class again to keep building on my research question.
I learned how to conduct statistics in SPSS and how to hook up and read an EKG! Awesome, right? If you want to see more about my research question, methodology, or results, you can take a look at my report.
Here’s one of the multiple pictures I took to demonstrate my proprioception task to the other experimenters. Other angles we measured included 20°, 70°, and 90°. People tended to have the most success recreating the 90° angle!
45 Degree Angle for Proprioception Task
At the beginning of the school year, I started working at Carilion Stonewall Jackson hospital in Lexington, Virginia. It’s the only local hospital near my university, and it serves the people of Lexington and Rockbridge County. The experience has been excellent thus far. I work in two separate areas: Emergency Department and Med Surg. In the Emergency Department, I help guide family members back to see patients and make sure all patients are comfortable and safe in the waiting area. In Med Surg, however, I am running all over the place! I answer the nurse call buttons and bring patients food, drinks, and toiletries. My favorite part of the hospital has been working in Med Surg. The nurses are friendly, and I’ve had the opportunity to learn a lot about what they do on a day to day basis with patient care. It’s always funny when a patient calls and asks for food they know they aren’t allowed to have. I always have to double check the dietary restrictions for a patient before I bring them any food or drink. There’s been a few patients why try to get a little ice cream treat – so sneaky!
I’ve only worked for one semester, and I am looking to increase my hours as winter term starts because volleyball season is officially over. I’ll let you know if anything else crazy happens!
I’ve spent 6 weeks in Dr. Friend’s lab so far, and it is not exactly what I expected! Lab work in classes like Organic Chemistry and Biology differs drastically from the lab work in Dr. Friend’s lab. We spend a lot of time analyzing data, and we have been struggling to efficiently transfect our mouse cells with our processivity construct DNA. The struggles and challenges are what make this lab so different from my previous lab experiences in class – but it’s what I’m enjoying about lab so much this summer! It’s frustrating when things don’t go according to plan at first, but problem solving with Dr. Friend and the other members of my lab has made the experience more engaging than any lab for class.
One of our main goals was to test candidate proteins to see which ones affect the expression of the MTOR gene, but we haven’t even had the chance to begin testing these proteins yet! With the new introduction of yeast as a model organism into Dr. Friend’s lab, we have had to learn many more protocols!
As of now, we know that when yeast reach high optical densities, the levels of mRNA do not change. In essence, regardless of cell density, all of our yeast samples had consistent mRNA values. We are continuing to test our other hypotheses, however, and I can’t wait to see what we figure out.
I’ll check back in after my last two weeks of lab are over!
I just finished registering for fall term of my junior year. It’s unbelievable how quickly my first two years at Washington and Lee have flown by, but I look forward to getting deeper into the Neuroscience major and the pre-med track. I just registered yesterday, and everything worked out as planned: I will have a busy fall with volleyball and a full load of classes! My schedule is as follows: