Racquel Sohasky examining a surgical monitor during her internship at Vanderbilt University hospital.
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Participating in summer research can offer students the opportunity to use technology on the cutting edge of science. Racquel Sohasky ’17 took full advantage of such a chance this past summer in Nashville through an internship at the Perioperative Clinical Research Institute at Vanderbilt University’s Department of Anesthesiology. Much of her internship was spent testing the ClearSight system, a new monitor for goal-directed fluid therapy. This project had her working directly in the operating room: setting up the monitor, entering data during the surgeries, and monitoring data collection in the post-anesthesia care unit. When not busy with her own project, Racquel assisted with other research-related projects—screening of patients, processing informed consent forms of research participants, and uploading data to the national biomedical research database ClinicalTrials.gov.

This internship was the perfect opportunity for Racquel, a biology major from Sylvania, Ohio, who plans to one day work as a clinician. She writes, “My favorite part of this research experience has been all of the exposure to patient care and being directly involved in the testing of a new machine with potential to be used regularly in the operating room.”

Her internship has also given her new insights into the process of clinical research. She says, “The most interesting thing I have learned about is all of the criteria that researchers take into account when planning research.” Her summer experience was funded by a competitive scholarship from the B.A. Rudolph foundation, a program that funds unpaid internships for women in science and technology fields. Next year, Racquel will attend medical school, studying toward her ultimate goal of becoming an anesthesiologist.