UFO Festival

My first volunteer duty at the McMinnville Downtown Association was to help out with the UFO Festival. MDA's involvement in terms of activity vendors included the alien souvenirs and cotton candy. This year, there was a large volume of volunteers so instead of helping out at the cotton candy stall, I was instead assigned to the Pet Costume Contest.

Together with 4 other volunteers, our jobs were to be the MC and judges. Basically everything was adequately prepared by Kris: from the table, pens, sign up forms to award certificates and dog treats. A girl was the MC and the rest of us were judges. At first everything seemed quite chaotic with everyone all over the place with their pets; but eventually a little bit of improvisation and flexibility helped settled things. Some of my friends came and attended the contest, but I could see that they were not that entertained. The pets and their costumes were, of course, the center of the show. But more activities could have made things more interesting and make up for the owners' efforts to dressing their pets. All we did was having the contestants lined up and walked their pets as their names were called. I guess we had too little time to plan so that was all we could do. I think I am over-analyzing things...after all, this was my first task and my enthusiasm was not sufficiently fed. Nevertheless, I heard that last year people were much crowded at one place and the change in location had helped a lot.

After the contest, Kris assigned me to sort through the garbage at the alien stall. By 5, the cleaning services arrived and it was time for me to go. Kris promised to keep me updated with the next assignment which, according to her, would be "not as fun". The first thought that came to my mind was "Finally, maybe I'd get to make some flyers and paper work next". But as I recall from MDA's yearly schedule, the next event on calendar is McMinnville's Farmers' Market. More vendor work, perhaps?

Overall, I think I had a nice first day volunteering at the MDA today. I like to help out, and don't mind running errands or doing mundane tasks. It was fun getting to know Kris, who was super nice and I could see that she and Ginger had put a lot of effort into keeping everything running smoothly and under control.

Internship Experience #2

I completed my second internship at the medical office yesterday. The doctor’s assistant showed me how and even let me prepare the injections for the patients. It was a great skill to learn. At first I had trouble preventing the air bubbles from getting into the syringes, but after a few times I got the hang of it. It was really hard to keep track of the solutions because they were all clear. I became acquainted with the offices biohazard and sharps receptacles too. After the injectable solutions were prepared I was able to watch the doctor administer them into knee and shoulder joints. At this rate I will get over my fear of needles really quickly.

The patients were wonderful to talk to. Many of them had very interesting life stories. In fact, I came across two people yesterday who each had different stories about their pet chickens. I was able to observe their facial expressions when the doctor was interacting with them. It is interesting to see how each one responds to the doctor when he is telling them their diagnosis and treatment options. In most cases everyone was in a cheery mood. A few of the male patients came in ready to tell the doctor a joke that they had “heard the other day.” One was a dumb blonde joke. No one seems to mind that I am there observing. A few patients asked what school I was going to and if I enjoyed it.

Because of the HIPAA regulations I am not really able to give much information about the cases I observed or any other medically relevant information about my internship experiences, but I can say that there are certainly some very interesting people in our world and everyone is unique. I imaging that the variation of patients and ailments is what keeps the doctor and his staff on their toes and busy everyday. I continue to enjoy working in the medical field as I have for many years now and I am continuously reassured that I am currently on the right path in my life.

Welcome to your summer/fall internship

Welcome to IDST 287 and your summer and/or fall internship.  This is the blog where all interns earning IDST 287 credit will blog (journal) about their experience.  Please read each others' posts, please comment on each others' posts, and have fun with this!  


I look forward to reading about your experiences regularly!


Kristi