Week 3: The National Institutes of Health; the people

A quarter of the way done. How is that possible? So much left to do, so little time. It’s unbelievable how much I have already learned in my short time here, and I am so excited to see where the next six weeks take me.

Wake Forest really represents at the NIH. I am a part of a team in the department of rehabilitation medicine that we fondly and aptly call the TBI team. It’s made up of people of many professions (physical therapists, speech and language pathologists, occupational and recreational therapists, epidemiologists and biostatisticians, and so on and so forth), and I am on a subteam of neuropsychologists. The lead investigator of this subunit is a contract researcher (not a federal employee of the NIH) who is the director of the neuropsych program. I was originally put in contact with him through a Wake alum, who (at the time) was a postbac IRTA (1-2 year fellow at the NIH), and who is now a full time employee. [Wake alum, check.] The second full time psychometrist worked for many years in a clinical setting, before joining this research team a year ago. Way back when, she also attended Wake. [2 Wake alums, check.] There is one IRTA who had been here just under a year when I arrived, whose educational background I have no knowledge of, but two recent Wake graduates (wahoo Class of 2016!!) who were both Psychology Honor’s students are starting as IRTAs this summer as well! [4 Wake alums, check.] And finally, we have little old summer student me. [4 Wake alums, 1 current Wake student, check.] All in all, I’d say Wake represents a fair amount of the neuropsych research being churned out in the Clinical Center.

This week has been full of data analysis and lectures, which keeps me running at full speed all day everyday. It’s exhausting, but it’s incredible. On Wednesday I attended five lectures (naturally, I was hardly at my desk all day), and it was so exciting for me to see the wide range of studies and research available for me to learn about here. I learned about robotic surgery, processing fMRI data using brand new programming, I followed the eradication of Hep C, and the learned the history and future of human genome mapping, all in one afternoon. It’s all sharing new ideas and learning all the time, and I am thrilled to be here and be a part of the process for six more weeks.

Until next time!