This week, we did a lot of lab work in the office.
We shadowed medical technologists and observed how to do analyses of iron, vitamin A, and iodine levels in blood serum. We did high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) to do this. HPLC is a technique in chemistry used to separate, identify, and quantify each component in a mixture. For iodine, we had to run 18 test tubes and rapidly switch them out when putting the solution in them, or when putting them in the centrifuge. It was like a puzzle.
We normally talked with the team after our time in the lab which was informative.
We started going to work earlier at 7. We are required to stay for 9 hours, so if we go to work at 7 we stay til 4. We typically used to stay from 8 to 5.
I am currently in Palawan, a very pretty province in the Philippines, today and will be staying till Saturday. We are doing field work on Monday, so we were able to go a couple days early for vacation. We are in Puerto Princesa and will be going to El Nido tomorrow. Both of these are vacation spots. We are going to swim with whale sharks, go snorkeling, and island hopping.
This week was super interesting because I really wanted to do lab work, which will help me grow my skills as a researcher. Doing lab work was very engaging. I really liked how we got a bunch of different experiences overall such as doing office work, attending a seminar, doing fieldwork, and doing lab work. This variety of experiences makes this feel like a truly great internship. It was tough at first, but it was all worth it.
More about my Palawan excursion to come!
