Has anyone had any cool internship experiences relating to BME that they would like to share?
Candice Cheung said:
I had an internship with Alpha Omega Engineering, a Neuro company. They make deep brain stimulation machines, which is incredibly cool if you haven’t looked it up. But because they’re based in Israel, I worked in the American office, which deals with sales and everything else in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. I wasn’t really qualified to do anything, so I acted as the customer service representative for the office. It isn’t really an engineering job, per se, but I learned a lot. I got to talk to a lot of hospital administrators, research administrators, doctors, and surgeons, as they are all part of our client base. I also handled all of the logistics of shipping supplies, materials, and I now know more about shipping than I ever thought I’d need to know. But apart from doing more administrative and managerial tasks, I got to witness and be part of a very small company, and I really understood how important it is to have salespersons be also extremely technically oriented: I have listened to multiple conversations regarding our products and trying to sell them to new or current clients, and it’s extremely technically based. It was a great encouragement because I know that my technical skills and knowledge may not be as deep as some of my peers, but I can make up for it with good people and networking skills. And in the spare time I had, I studied our products and tried to figure out how they worked, what made our products better than our competitors’, etc.
I’ve also had internships at animal clinics. The most recent experience I had was at an animal hospital in Alpharetta. It’s sort of different from hospitals – there are definitely different procedures and regulations to follow, but I really enjoyed it. It was incredibly educational, as there are a lot of procedures that are done in ways that I wouldn’t have thought of, like neutering a dog (it’s very interesting). Something that is great iwth animals hospitals is that you can be involved in the clinic. I have assisted in the OR – not just observing like most shadowees do in hospitals. But I got to assist in the OR and during procedures.
Yuna Oh said:
I interned twice at Abbott Laboratories but in very different departments with very different roles.
First I was in Santa Clara, California, in Abbott Diagnostics Hematology R&D division working as an R&D engineer. We were working on the prototype for blood diagnostic machine. I was in charge of creating test procedures for hardware subassembly testings before we sent them off for manufacturing. There are myriad of things I learned; I worked with a team of software, hardware, systems engineers and had to learn to work with different people to accomplish a task even though I was not a manager. I also took part in mechanical environmental testing for another prototype that was there, to figure out the optimal temperature and fan speed for the machine to minimize noise while maximizing cooling efficiency.
I truly loved R&D division, where all the engineers work together to build something that will be launched years after; it’s like working for the “future”, if I were to be corny about it. I learned the whole prototyping cycle before launch, various problems that arise, and the relationship of manufacturers to contractors to the companies themselves, etc. It was definitely a valuable experience, especially being in Silicon Valley, where I met many young, smart engineers and peers that gave me insights and perspectives that I never had.
Second internship was nearer to San Francisco, at Abbott Diabetes Care division, working as a supply chain manager intern. I would have to say that I did not love it as much as I loved my first internship.
But I did gain, again, a valuable experience and perspective that I hadn’t gained in the first internship. I learned the business side of healthcare industry, and sometimes found inefficiencies or “blocks” in the healthcare system that I had not seen, being in the little R&D hub of engineers. I think that was when I really found the need for innovation in healthcare system and change to make it more accessible, efficient, and cost-saving, etc. etc. I saw how global distribution networks worked, what kinds of problem the business faced in distributing to different countries with different sets of regulations. Also, I found how an inefficient system in supply chain or unnecessarily complex distribution networks could increase costs and eventually drain the system.
Internships are amazing in that it shows real life examples of complex problems in the world.
Even though schools may “simulate” such problem and we can find a “solution”, most of the time in the real world, the problem is giant and complex and interconnected with so many other system that there are not one simple “solution” that could fix the whole problem within couple weeks, months, or even years. Sometimes companies get in the endless loop of system that is broken or inefficient but continue because that’s “the way it has been for years”.
Anyways, I have other experiences in terms of research, etc. and if you want more insight, just shoot me an email listed on my website.