My summer had begun 2 weeks ago and I was excited to have as much fun as possible during this time before 8th grade. I had just finished 7th grade in Basis Independent Silicon Valley and I spent my first week of summer playing my favorite sports(volleyball and basketball) and playing Super Smash Bros Ultimate with friends, the destiny franchise and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I was going to spend my second week of my summer at LA for a medical summer camp in U.C. Irvine.
Day 1 :
The first thing I did was sign up. I got a backpack and a t-shirt. Inside the backpack I got a water bottle, a notebook, a pen, and a folder with the schedule. The instructors walked us to the breakfast place and I picked up a donut there. The next thing we did were some icebreakers to introduce everyone and get to know everyone a little. After that, we walked to a classroom and our instructors taught us about the anatomy and physiology of the human body, specifically the 11 organ systems and their functions. Ten minutes after the anatomy talk a radiologist came in to teach us about radiology, the significance of it, and how to perceive and understand the pictures that radiologists get everyday. After lunch, we did learned about cardiopulmonary resuscitation(CPR) and the AED machine. We learned when to use it and how to execute the procedure. You should use CPR if someone has gone into cardiac arrest. You can tell this by checking if he is responding and if he has a pulse. If he doesn’t have either then CPR should be executed on the victim and the AED will analyze his hearth rhythm and determine if the victim requires a shock. The last thing we did was to conduct an experiment. The experiment was about how well Clorox wipes work and if it would actually kill a significant amount of bacteria. The first thing we did was swab an item and wipe the swab on the plate that bacteria grow on. Then the same thing should happen except you should wipe the item with Clorox wipes before you swab it.
Day 2 :
I started off my day at U.C. Irvine eating breakfast and watching all of shin lim’s acts in America’s Got Talent(AGT) while I was waiting for the other people in my group. After everyone arrived, we started with practicing knot tying. We practiced tying a specific type of knot called the surgical knot. This would be used to close a wound during surgery. After that, we had a presentation by a neuropsychiatrist about sleep, the importance of sleep, and the consequences of not getting enough sleep. He taught us about the stages of sleep, the biological clock for sleep and the on and off switch for sleep. He taught us that lack of sleep could lead to problems like stress, ADHD, etc. and that this could cause a huge impact on everyday life. The last thing we did was practice doctor and patient interactions. We would be put in a room with an instructor who would pretend to be a patient and talk to them. The goal was to learn how to deal with different types of patients. Sometimes the patient might be rude, or scared about his or her health, or the patient might be in a rush to go somewhere. We would ask questions to try and diagnose the patient and to try and make the patient feel better with the concept of empathy. The doctor should always try and put himself or herself in the shoes of the patient to try and understand the pain that he or she is going through so that they could try and help him or her feel more comfortable.
Day 3:
We started off our day immediately with learning about the spine, the sections of it, how to execute a spinal tap, intubation, and CPR for infants. The trickiest was the intubation because the trachea was small and hard to find. It started off by tilting the patient’s head back and putting a light in their mouth to find the trachea. Next you would stick a tube into the trachea and then the tube is attached to a machine that will pump oxygen for the patient. You start off the spinal tap in the lowest bone in the spine because if you do it higher in the spine and you hit a nerve that could be fatal. It is most likely going to paralyze the patient. The point of the spinal tap is to draw out cerebrospinal fluid to test it or see if it is infected or to relieve pressure in the head or measure the pressure in the brain and spinal cord. After you find the two lowest bones in the spine you insert the needle between the two until you feel something hard and until you hear something pop. That means you went through the ligament. After that you do not insert it any farther or it would not work. After you insert it you then take out the part of the needle that is blocking the cerebrospinal fluid and then collect the cerebrospinal fluid dripping out in a flask. CPR for infants is the same thing for adults except when you do compressions you use two fingers. The last thing we did was a pig dissection. We dissected a fetal pig. We started off with an incision down the middle and then another incision across from left to right. After we cut open the pig we had a competition to see who could identify all of the organs the fastest and the most accurate.
Day 4:
I started my day off by learning about ultrasound. The first thing we did was learn about ultrasound and why we use it. Ultrasound is a type of scan that you can use to look inside your body. It’s like an X-ray except you don’t use radiation. You use sound to take the picture. This is useful to take scans for infants and pregnant mothers because X-rays, CT scans, etc. could harm the baby and cause mutations. It is also much faster, cheaper, and easier to execute than other scans. You would start off by applying gel to the probe and then rubbing the gel on the place you want to scan. The gel is used to keep the air away and stop the air from interrupting the scan. After that, you place the probe and rub it around the gel until you find what you want. Another thing that is helpful for identifying veins or arteries is called the color flow. This shows things that are moving to you and away from you like blood and arteries when they contract. The things that are red are moving towards you and the things that are blue move away form you. We learned how to identify organs and other things. Dense objects appear white like organs, but things like air and liquid appear black because they are less dense. We practiced identifying problems in the body and how they would appear. We learned how to execute an ultrasound and we tried it too. The other thing we did was observe our bacteria that we swabbed on Monday. We observed our plates to see if it had any colonies that started growing. We made a presentation about our project and we came to the conclusion that Clorox wipes kills majority of the bacteria that you are trying to clean.
Day 5:
At the final day of this program we did not do much since it was the last day. We started off by presenting our presentation about bacteria to our friends and instructors. The other thing we did was play jeopardy to see how well we learned the material and for fun. The winner was aloud to get food first when it was lunch time and lunch was chick fil-a and there was not a lot of chicken. My group won and we were aloud to get food first. The last thing we did was the closing ceremony(with parents) where the instructors handed out certificates to everyone for completing the program.
