Chloe R. - Spring Intern 2020

An old co-worker of Crystals came to visit the clinic this week. He told me about how every year he goes the Haiti for a week to help care for people in need. Haiti is a very poor country that is still recovering from an earthquake that happened many years ago. Crystal donates some of the medicine and supplies from the clinic to this former co-worker so he can have more resources in Haiti. He described how there are families struggling to live a healthy life with the chronic poverty that is happening. This former co-worker is very inspiring and interested me in doing something like this in my future. Tuesday I saw a cute little baby get a checkup. One of my favorite things about this internship is the wide variety of ages and health issues that I get to see everyday. A patient then came in with an ingrown toenail. They had part of the nail removed months ago but failed to take proper care of it. Crystal then had to do a small removal to prevent the infection from worsening. O

Being at my internship this week has proven flu season is definitely among us. There have been multiple people in the clinic this week with symptoms of influenza type A and B. Crystal checked on each patients asking them questions about how they are feeling and prescribing medication when necessary. The nurses are in charge of swabbing the patients to check if they have the flu. The C line appears each time as a control. Either the A or B line will appear to determine if the patient has influenza type A or B. If the patient does not have the flu, neither of those lines will appear. This is a flu test.  Weight management is a major thing Crystal comes in contact with through her patients. She taught me a lot this week about how insulin is essential to the body. Insulin allows glucose to enter into cells; it balances the sugar levels in the blood. The pancreas is the main source of insulin in our bodies. When your body fails to produce insulin you will develop Type I Diabetes. Ty