Summer Internship Reflections: Bruker Daltronics, Mass General, Freight Farms, and Dr. Riester's

 

With summer nearly at its midpoint, several of these interns have already experienced what it is like to work in such cutting-edge environments as Bruker Daltronics, Freight Farms, Mass General Hospital, and Medical Associates of Greater Boston. Below are excerpts from the first round of internship journals and links to the full reflections on our blog.

 

 

This summer, I am interning at Bruker Daltonics, a company that produces and sells mass spectrometers and their accompanying devices. I’ve spent every day of the past week learning about MALDI mass spectrometry (matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization), and, to be completely honest, I’m still pretty confused! It’s an entire field of graduate school-level analytical chemistry that I’m attempting to jump into, and if not for the tireless, endless support of my managers there, I would be hopelessly lost.

 

 

I have the amazing opportunity this summer to intern at the Medical Associates of Greater Boston, shadowing Dr. Deborah Riester. Dr. Riester is a primary care doctor specializing in endocrinology, which means that she treats disorders of the endocrine system. The primary function of the endocrine organs is hormone secretion, meaning that many of the patients that Dr. Riester sees are diabetic or suffering from similar symptoms. Having no previous knowledge about diabetes, this will be a very interesting and informative internship for me.

 

 

I have spent the last two weeks as an intern at Freight Farms, a company that makes hydroponic farms out of used shipping containers. For reference: one Leafy Green Machine (LGM) is equal to more than one acre of land and uses 90% less water than a regular soil farm. The LGM can have 12 harvests in one year versus a regular farm with 1 harvest per year.

 

 

This summer, I have the amazing opportunity to be an intern at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Mass General Hospital. The PICU is an extremely complicated unit. Although there are only 14 beds, the intensivists in the PICU are required to possess deep knowledge of every medical specialty, as they see a wide variety of conditions.