My internship experience at Poudre Valley Hospital (PVH) was both enriching and enjoyable. My mentors, Sherry and Claire, were helpful and supportive and challenged me with many interesting assignments. I really liked the wide array of internship projects and daily tasks, which provided me with a taste of many environmental health specialties. Although there were some elements of the internship that were frustrating, my overall experience was quite positive.

Sherry and Claire have been exceptio… Continue

We woke up early in the morning to meet the rest of the VSP team at the cruise ship. When we arrived, we met CAPT Jaret Ames and went through security—a lot like airport security, which makes sense, but easier when equipped with a PHS uniform and official government badge! I was absolutely stunned about how BIG these ships are. I had seen cruise ships in the distance before, but never up close, and it truly is mindblowing. Once we boarded the ship, we were assigned to various locations to assist… Continue

I went with Kate to Coor’s today to do smoke tests. She measures the smoke coming out of the baskets that catch the dust particles from the malt house and germination house. We got to walk around the roof tops of the Coor’s facility. It was a maze trying to find where we were supposed to be to measure them. We would go up a man-lift then up more stairs then pop our heads out on the roof and see the plume/vent two buildings over. It amazes me how they keep track of all that equipment and all the… Continue

Back in the office, kind of. Today was technically a field trip day, but instead we spent the morning teaching a portion of the EHTER course to the CLEH interns. I think this was a really good experience for them—so far, most of the speakers we’ve had have focused on sustainability, so this gave them a chance to see a new aspect of environmental health. CAPT Mark Miller decided to cover the shelters section of the course, which was exciting for me because of my Norovirus project.

We split the s… Continue

Today was definitely the best Field Trip Day yet. We met this morning at the Georgia Aquarium in downtown Atlanta for a behind-the-scenes tour. I had been to the aquarium twice before—once on a crowded Saturday the first weekend I got here and once for a special NEHA event—but getting to go behind the scenes was truly a fantastic experience. We started off by going to the top of the exhibit called “Ocean Explorer.” This exhibit is enormous—over 55 million gallons. We got an overview of all that… Continue