Journal Entries

Quarter #3

12 Feburary 2010

 

            I was doubtful that I would go to internship today because, after all, we just had two blizzards. But I’m no wimp and I went. It was fine, really. When I got there I found out that the transcript that I was working on was finished. So I listened to the seminar again and checked it over. It had a few mistakes, bit it was pretty good. After that, I formatted the seminar so it would be ready to be PDF’d and put on the OLAW website. So hopefully, it’ll be up soon.

Quarter 2 Journal Summary:

                Although I didn’t get to go in to OLAW as often as I would have liked this quarter because of vacation and sickness, I definitely had some pretty memorable experiences.  To start off, at the beginning of the quarter, I got to meet a delegation of Chinese scientists who were visiting NIH and listen to my mentor explain how OLAW works to them. It was really exciting to meet people from a completely different culture and have them understand what we do.  I enjoyed watching the translator flip back and forth between English and Chinese and hearing their questions. Later on, I also went to a NIH/USDA/FDA meeting at OLAW. Although I can’t honestly say that it was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me, it was interesting to see people from all three agencies/departments discussing the differences in their policies, especially since I was little confused about that for awhile.

                Additionally, I continued work on my research on comparative animal welfare. I learned about Britain, Canada and am currently working on New Zealand.

                Hopefully, next quarter, I’ll be able to come in more!

 

12 November 2009

 

             Unlike usual, today I did have school but I went to OLAW anyway (field trip). Today, a group of Chinese scientists from different universities and institutions came to NIH. Ms. Silk and I went. It was very cool. I handed out information on OLAW and copies of the Guide in Chinese. Ms. Silk spoke to them and explained OLAW and talked about our system for about half and hour. Afterwards, the Chinese asked questions. One man even asked how we work with the FBI. Additionally, I got to meet Dr. Jerry Collins and Chris. I had heard lots about both of them, but had never actually meet either. Dr. Collins is a professor at Yale and also works with OLAW part-time, he helps a lot with the webinars. Chris is a nueroscientist at NIH and comes to OLAW once a week to work on modifying the vertabrae animal section on the NIH grant applications.

4 December 2009

          Well, I haven’t actually gone to my internship since the last seminar. I was pretty sick and couldn’t go over break. However, I have finished my research on Britain and have just moved on to Canada. Britain was pretty interesting and very different – it much more centralized and uses three different types of licenses rather than one. But, it hadn’t really changed much since the ILAR journal. I’m hoping this is just Britain and the other countries aren’t like that because then I won’t have a lot to write about.

18 December 2009 -- NIH/USDA/FDA

 

             Today, I had planned to go to NIH for a NIH/USDA/FDA meeting, but I was sick. I even emailed Ms. Silk and told her that I wasn’t coming. But around noon, I felt better and decided at last minute to go anyways because I felt much better. I arrived a little late but luckily Dr. Morse was there to show me to the meeting. To be completely honest, the meeting was kind of boring and I forgot my box of tissues. However, it was interesting to hear them talk about policymaking the differences between the different agencies. But because I wasn’t feeling well I left pretty immediately after the meeting was over after I gave my mentors my gifts.

7 January 2010 - Winter Break

             My mentor and most of the OLAW office were out over winter break too,  so I unfortunately didn’t get to go into OLAW. Even though I do have roll over hours, I wish that I got to go in more this quarter. However, I have continued with my research. I’m now working on New Zealand which is interesting because not only do I like New Zealand, a lot has changed since the ILAR journal in 1995 – namely an entirely new main law. Also, the government websites were very, very helpful. However a lot of it seems contradictory in some ways, so I need to figure this out.

Quarter 1

 

Quarter 1 Journal Summary

         This quarter I continued with my internship that I started this summer. Because it’s 40 minutes away from my house, I only went a few times on days that I had school off. But when I was there, I did quite a few things. Most notably, I worked on the transcript for our latest OLAW web seminar, “Emerging Issues: USDA perspectives”. I will be working with the seminar transcripts for my final project. I also decided on my research topic this quarter, I’ll be researching and comparing different laboratory animal welfare systems in the United Kingdom, Japan, New Zealand, Canada, and, of course, the United States. I found a journal on this exact topic in the OLAW office so I’ll be basing my paper off that.

20 August 2009 – Start-up Meeting.

Even though I had already been going to my internship for a while now, today was my start-up meeting with Mrs. Kelly and my mentor, Ms. Silk. Right before I had my meeting, I went to the NIH main campus to get my HHS ID.  Unfortunately, they neglected to tell me I had to get a form signed by my parents, so I didn’t. My meeting with Mrs. Kelly went well, I think. We just talked about me, and what sort of things I have to do this year in Intern/Mentor. I’m really happy to have Ms. Silk as my mentor – she’s very

4 September 2009 -- First Day

            Today, I had the day off of school, so I went to my mentorship. I was supposed work on a paper on OLAW that will go in my final project; however, I had no idea what, or how to write it. So, I talked to Ms. Silk a little, and we decided that I should organize the paper by describing the functions of each of OLAW’s divisions. With this help, I went back to my office and easily wrote two-thirds of my paper. I sent it to Ms. Silk later, and she really liked it. While she was going over the paper, we got to talking about the regulations behind human research subjects, and had a pretty interesting conversation on the differences between OLAW, and the office that deals with human subjects, the Office of Human Research Protection and how we deal with assurances. After that, I started work on a timeline of animal welfare by looking at other timelines and the documents we have in our archives.

 

30 September 2009 -- USDA Transcribing

 

Today, I didn't have school, so I went to my internship. I actually drove myself so I got there before my mentor did. I set up in my office and started work on the animal welfare timeline I had started the last time I was there. When Ms. Silk go there, she wanted me to listen and subscribe our latest seminar. The seminar's speaker was Dr. Goldentyer, an authority at the USDA Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service, the sub-agency we share regulatory responsibilities with. She spoke about new changes for APHIS, like a new database and required emergency plans. Transcribing takes a long time, so that was all I did after that.

 

11 October 2009

         Well, I haven’t actually gone to my internship since the last time journal were due. But, I’ve done things for my internship, of course. I’ve been in contact with my mentor, Ms. Silk, and constantly looking for new, relevant, journal articles, news, and databases. I found a database from Cambridge that looked to have lots of potential, but you have to pay for a lot of the article, so that was unsuccessful. I emailed Ms. Silks Monday about my final project. I had come up with the idea of explained our assurances system within the context of other animal welfare regulation system in other countries to visiting scientist. But unfortunately, Ms. Silk says that we can’t discuss other countries’ policies, so I’m not really sure where I’m going with now, or which societies to mail.

 

11 November 2009 -- Renovations?

 

           Like usual, today I didn't have school so I went to OLAW. I wanted in to my office and there were lots of things I didn't recognize. Apparently, they're redoing the office. But other that that, my day was pretty uneventful. I got to interview Dr. Wolff, the director of the division of compliance and oversight, and got a picture so that was good. Other than that, I did lots of research on Britain and I finally feel like I made significant progress on that. Something interesting I learned about OLAW is that we have the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals in tons of languages. I found it in Chinese, Spanish, French and even Turkish.