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…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on July 30, 2009 at 5:11pm —
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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…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on July 21, 2009 at 9:28pm —
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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…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on July 21, 2009 at 9:27pm —
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We had another brown bag lunch today with a man named Stan Meiburg. He is currently a district director in the EPA and used to be the liason between the EPA and the CDC. He gave us a history of the EPA and explained some of the current issues facing the EPA. For a while, the discussion centered on the benefits of being regulation-based (unlike the CDC) but that this is a drawback in that they have a hard time developing incentive-based programs. These could potentially be more effective, but the…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on July 1, 2009 at 8:15pm —
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Today was the first day of NEHA! My uniform is finally complete, so I started off my morning by driving to LTJG Cory Moore’s (a relatively new USPHS officer who runs the CLEH and SUPEH programs) house to make sure I had everything good to go. I was so lucky that she was willing to help me out because pretty much everything I had on was askew in some way or another. Cory has been a huge help to me with getting my uniform together and pretty much everything.
NEHA started with the keynote speaker w…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 25, 2009 at 9:29pm —
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This is the first day I’ve been able to really dedicate my whole day to my project. I read and took notes on several papers and spent a lot of time on Google Scholar. Many articles have been written on Noro on cruise ships and in the hospital setting, but very few papers are out there specifically on shelter outbreaks, so it’s been interesting to figure out what is applicable and what is not. One paper was particularly interesting (although gross)—they purposely contaminated peoples’ hands with…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 22, 2009 at 5:42am —
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Today was the last day of orientation-type activities for the SUPEH and CLEH interns. (I am one of the SUPEHs. The CLEH program is for non-EH majors to get experience in environmental health). Our first activity in the morning was a presentation by Dr. Henry Falk. He is the director of the Coordinating Center for Environmental Health and Injury Prevention. Most of his lecture was providing background information on the Coordinating Centers (which actually may go away soon if the new Director reo…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 13, 2009 at 2:18pm —
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I started my internship today! I am in two programs simultaneously, which gets confusing. I am primarily in the US Public Health Service’s Junior COSTEP (Commission Corps Officer Student Training Extern Program) with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta as my duty station, but also a part of the CDC’s SUPEH group (Summer Undergraduate Program in Environmental Health). I will be working with the Environmental Health Services Branch (EHSB) in the National Center for Environmen…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 8, 2009 at 8:36pm —
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Hi everyone,
Sorry that I haven’t updated in a while—between the internship, horse shows, and life in general, I have been swamped! Here are some happenings of the last month:
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Drinking water system inspections. The county looks at small drinking water treatment systems for places not hooked to “the grid.” These are often located out of the valley up one of the canyons in the Wasatch. I went on an inspection of a campground in Big Cottonwood Canyon. You check for chlorine levels and ge…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on July 28, 2008 at 8:27pm —
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Today I went with one of the inspectors on used oil inspections. Used oil can be a big problem when people just throw it away in their garbage or when stores manage it improperly because if it ends up in the landfill it can end up in the groundwater-- not a happy situation for anybody. Most of the Jiffy Lube/AutoZone/general oil change places in the valley now participate in a state program where they get money for every gallon of oil they give to the state, as well as accepting oil from "do-it-…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on July 2, 2008 at 7:45pm —
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#1: I am now officially a brochure-making pro. Want to know about electronic waste, sewer systems, or hazardous waste from dry cleaners, auto body shops, or car repair? Ask me.
#2: Google is actually as amazing as you think it is. One of my supervisors was panicking on Monday because she had a meeting with the health department's lawyer about a potential and very likely lawsuit, and couldn't find a map of the area in question. Solution? Google. Search subdivision name, end up with GPS coordinan…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 26, 2008 at 7:03pm —
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This morning I met the lady who runs the health department's hazardous waste program at a park downtown to learn how to set up the farmer's market booth. At the booth we give out materials on how you should dispose of unused pharmaceuticals, electronic waste, batteries, oils, paints, etc. Some people have questions, but mostly they like the magnets. People were mainly interested in how to throw away their batteries-- alkaline batteries can go in the regular garbage, but rechargeable batteries li…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 21, 2008 at 4:15pm —
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Today I shadowed one of the water quality people who samples swimming pools. I'm glad I didn't pick it as my summer job, but it was really interesting. The first pool we went to was one that had been shut down by the health department a week ago and was applying to be reopened. They had to change some safety stuff-- make their gate automatically lock, paint lines on the pool steps and secure the handrail-- and they did, so now they're open. The second we went to was at another apartment complex…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 18, 2008 at 6:08pm —
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I spent part of Thursday and part of today shadowing one of the health department's food inspectors. So far I have seen an ice cream store, a snowie shack, two day cares, a taco cart, a restaurant in an office building, and a Chinese buffet. The verdict: my favorite ice cream store in downtown Salt Lake passed, which made me happy. You can't really do much to make snowcones unsafe. However, the inspector I was with today said the buffet we went to was one of the best ones, which I found pretty f…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 16, 2008 at 5:37pm —
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My main problem of the day turned out not to be finding the internship or finding work clothes, but figuring out when to show up. The director's voicemail cuts out and she lost my phone number so we didn't get in touch again until last week, and then the guy I was reporting to didn't have my number so I had no idea of when to go to work. Luckily, my dad had the brilliant idea to call the office phone late at night to figure out when they open and show up then-- I came at 8 and he seemed to be ex…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on June 9, 2008 at 6:16pm —
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Realistically, networking is probably the best way to find a job or internship... 99.99% of the time. For this summer, I tried the cold-calling method ("cold-emailing" to be precise), and it worked out fabulously. In ERHS 492 seminar, we were working on a project to make a resume and cover letter for a potential internship. I wanted to go home to Salt Lake this summer, so I asked Erin if it would be all right if I wrote to the Salt Lake Valley Health Department (SLVHD) instead of one of the theo…
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Added by Samantha Kantrowitz on May 6, 2008 at 7:52pm —
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