This summer for me has been an incredible learning opportunity. I’ve had the chance to work within whole new environments, such as the surgical wards at Great Ormond Street hospital and the labs at the UCL GOS Institute of Child Health. I think my ability to work independently has improved, as has my resilience. I’ve been in situations where I felt stuck, and found solutions, and equally have been in situations where I was stuck and needed to ask for help. Looking back over the summer, I feel able to evaluate where I could have improved, and what I did well, and carry that knowledge forward.
A key lesson I learnt was the importance of taking the initiative to ask for the opportunities that you want – thanks to the generosity of the staff at GOSH, one of the best experiences I had this summer was spending a day in an operating theatre. I got to view the surgeries that I had previously only seen recreated numerically on a screen. One of the surgeries was a skull remodelling, where the back of the skull of a child is removed in pieces, rearranged into a different shape and then attached with a combination of screws, plates and wires. It was inspiring to watch the surgeons, who are some of the best in the world, work with such skill and artistry. I have also been able to join weekly department meetings between the engineers, surgeons, doctors and technicians within the craniofacial team. Watching them problem solve interesting interdisciplinary problems has put my engineering theory into a new context. This has helped me confirm my interest in biomedical engineering as a career, and given me a new sense of excitement about getting started.
I also feel that my confidence at reading engineering papers where the content is on a subject I’m not comfortable with has improved. I think being okay with not initially understanding something, and practising the (sometimes painful) process of getting better is a useful skill to have. Specifically for this project, getting to grips with some of the modelling software was a challenge. However, as it is used industry wide, I know that my experience will be very useful from a career perspective.
Something that I could have improved was my record keeping of the results/ the project generally as I was going along. This would have made the process of collecting data at the end much more straightforward, and the report writing experience quicker. Also, I think having a more rigid structure of what I was planning to do and when would have been helpful from a mental perspective. Learning not to underestimate how long it will take me to do something is a skill I am still perfecting!
Overall, this has been a fascinating experience, with an outcome I am proud of. I am excited to see what next summer brings!