A look into the lives of CSU's Current Environmental Health Interns
First days of internship!
Okay, so I’ve finally started my internship at the Weld County Health Department. I’m an EH intern, but I’m mostly working with the food safety program. I started yesterday and got to do a full day of online training. Yay. I managed to somehow do all 13 modules in a day and I am now a walking encyclopedia on all aspects relating to food borne illness prevention. Questions about HACCP or the incubation period for Listeria? Ask me ;) Anyway, those courses weren’t all that bad, and I was already familiar with most of the topics from classes and my last internship. I really shouldn’t have done all those courses in one day though. I left with such a headache from staring at the computer for so long. But at least I can go into the field now!
The second day marked the start of my inspection training in the field. Weld County has it set up where each new inspector has to go through a series of steps before they can do inspections by themselves. So, I have to do a certain number of observational inspections, and some joint inspections where I am evaluated for my performance. I was really worried about doing the inspections. Even though I had done a few before, this is a whole new system. I am so nervous that I will completely blank and forget everything I have learned in the last year. So far I haven’t done that!
I went out into the field today and observed two inspections. They were good places to start and you can check out the inspections online In general, the violations we noticed were related to employee practices, such as improper hand washing and wearing jewelry. We also noticed temperature violations, algae in an ice machine, etc. It was nice to see how cooperative everyone was and made me a little more comfortable with the inspection environment. It definitely has a different feel than the Public Health Service inspections. Violations are more serious on a county inspection level than on a reservation because of enforcement capabilities.
Oh, one of my fellow interns was apparently my RA for a camp I went to in high school. Small world! That also helped me ease into things. It’s always nice to see a familiar face.
On a different note, I finally got moved in after going home for a few weeks. Well, I’m not totally moved in. I’m living in a friends room until tomorrow when my room becomes available, so I’m still living from suitcases. It’s nice to be back up here (I grew up in the middle of nowhere), but I STILL don’t have cell phone signal at my place. I also don’t have internet and I can’t access webmail for some reason at work (though the other interns can get to their UNC accounts). This whole inability to contact people is going to drive me crazy!
More updates and crazy inspection stories to come later…the next time I can get to the internet!
Here’s the link to all the Weld County inspections!
http://www.co.weld.co.us/departments/health/decade/
The second day marked the start of my inspection training in the field. Weld County has it set up where each new inspector has to go through a series of steps before they can do inspections by themselves. So, I have to do a certain number of observational inspections, and some joint inspections where I am evaluated for my performance. I was really worried about doing the inspections. Even though I had done a few before, this is a whole new system. I am so nervous that I will completely blank and forget everything I have learned in the last year. So far I haven’t done that!
I went out into the field today and observed two inspections. They were good places to start and you can check out the inspections online In general, the violations we noticed were related to employee practices, such as improper hand washing and wearing jewelry. We also noticed temperature violations, algae in an ice machine, etc. It was nice to see how cooperative everyone was and made me a little more comfortable with the inspection environment. It definitely has a different feel than the Public Health Service inspections. Violations are more serious on a county inspection level than on a reservation because of enforcement capabilities.
Oh, one of my fellow interns was apparently my RA for a camp I went to in high school. Small world! That also helped me ease into things. It’s always nice to see a familiar face.
On a different note, I finally got moved in after going home for a few weeks. Well, I’m not totally moved in. I’m living in a friends room until tomorrow when my room becomes available, so I’m still living from suitcases. It’s nice to be back up here (I grew up in the middle of nowhere), but I STILL don’t have cell phone signal at my place. I also don’t have internet and I can’t access webmail for some reason at work (though the other interns can get to their UNC accounts). This whole inability to contact people is going to drive me crazy!
More updates and crazy inspection stories to come later…the next time I can get to the internet!
Here’s the link to all the Weld County inspections!
http://www.co.weld.co.us/departments/health/decade/
Comment
About
Badge
© 2010 Created by Charlotte Boney on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
You need to be a member of Environmental Health Interns to add comments!
Join this Ning Network