Week 9 GOL (July 31-August 4)

 Hi friends, I am back with an insanely eventful week. Below are the details. We have one more week of this internship so thank you for following my story this summer. Thank you for reading! 

Monday (July 31): Today I attended a didactic meeting on Quality assurance and the actions they need to take to follow up with tissue processing companies so that tissues can be released in order to help others. Quality Assurance may need to track down any missing medical files or cases in which the donor could have any diseases that were not identified in the medical and social history questionnaire. We also followed a chart review they had finished that morning. In organ cases, the chart review is relatively quick because they are life-saving transplants and everything that needs to be handled is handled prior to transplant. Remember in Week 1/2 I explained that tissue was regulated by the FDA? There are so many more details and background information needed to ensure that the bone and skin grafts that can help people live better lives are receiving tissue that does not carry a disease they could then suffer from. I finished the day by working on my project. 


Tuesday (August 1): Today was pretty cool. We went to NDRI, the National Disease Research Interchange. NDRI works with Gift of Life in cases where donors want to donate tissues or organs that are unable to be transplanted to research. They work with universities, private parties, for-profit organizations, and non-profit organizations. People will submit a profile of specific tissues for disease research, medical research, and a number of other research that continue the world of science. After the initial meetings, we interns were given a tour of the facility and even got to see the temporal lobe of a brain packaged to help with a research project that a University is working on. It was a really great group of people and I am excited at the possibility of working with them at some point in the future.

Wednesday (August 2): Today started off amazingly...at 12:07 PM my life changed. We woke up today and were able to get some Dunkin before going to the Delaware DMV to observe training that Public Affairs conducts to educate DMV employees on registering individuals to be organ donors and common questions they may receive so they can educate their patrons factually. After leaving the DMV, we stopped at Walmart on our way back to the office for a meeting with Public Affairs. On I-95 going North into Philadelphia, there was noon stop-and-go traffic. At mile marker 14, a tractor-trailer semi-truck slammed into my car and completely totaled it. Now, I am having to deal with the Insurance and medical consequences of this truck driver's actions. Thankfully, Howard Nathan, the Executive Director of Gift of Life, and previous CEO came and picked us up and made sure we were taken care of. That car was my storage locker, so most of my college items were loaded in the car and Howard made sure to load all of my stuff into his car and take us to get checked out by Urgent Care. I have a lot of people in my corner, but I know this is going to be a long unexpected road that I will travel down and get stronger because of it. 


Thursday (August 3): This morning we attended a meeting with Quality Assurance who gave us more details about the steps they need to do in order to follow up on cases for tissue processing companies. After the meeting, I dealt with insurance calls, filing claims and just dealing with the aftermath of my car being totaled by this semi-truck. 


Friday (August 4): This morning, I went to Howie's House with the other intern and we baked cookies for the transplant families and recipients so they could have baked goods. We did take photos, however, I don't have access to those photos as of now. In between baking, I met with counsel regarding the motor vehicle accident and handled more insurance items to hopefully get the ball rolling. After baking, we went to the office to have our meeting with Public Affairs that we did not get to attend due to the events of Wednesday afternoon. My best friend is in town for the last week of my internship, so our friend from Ocean City picked us up and we had a relaxing weekend-or at least as relaxing as it could be given the circumstances of my transportation issue that has developed. 

Overall, this week was completely crazy. I am confident that this coming last week of my Gift of Life internship will be great. Thank you for following along and I'll see yall next week. 

Have a good day! 

-Rachael Triglia   

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gift of Life and Me

Image
                            Hi! My name is Rachael Triglia and I will intern for 10 weeks at the Gift of Life Institute in Philadelphia, PA (June 5-August 11, 2023).       The Gift of Life Donor program is a non-profit organ procurement organization headquartered in Philadelphia, PA. The Gift of Life Institute works with 128 small care hospitals and 14 transplant centers, serving 11.3 million people in the eastern half of Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey, and Delaware. For over a decade, the Gift of Life Donor Program has coordinated the most organ donors in the United States. Its annual donation rate is amongst the highest in the world with its most recent 62 organ donors per million population. During my ten weeks at the Gift of Life Institute, I will participate in and observe a range of different departments on a rotational schedule (1-2 weeks in each department). These experiences include organ donor assessment and management, observing the organ allocation system, organ transpla
Read more

GOL Week 1 (June 5-June 9)

Image
 Wow this week was amazing!  I was definitely overwhelmed during the first couple of days as everything was a new experience. I've never had a job where business casual attire was the norm, so this week I learned about professionalism and the proper attire to convey that professionalism. This week I participated in Tissue services and observed the Transplant Information Call Center (TIC) on a rotational basis which will be outlined below. I also received Didactic overviews of tissue services and the TIC in addition to being enrolled in courses that inform me on what tissue donation is, how to talk to families, the proper procedures Gift of Life partakes in, and so much more.  Monday (06/05/2023): I arrived through the gates of the Gift of Life Institute and began my orientation. I was taken to the IT/HR department to take a photo so that I could have badge access to specific portions of the GOL facility. In addition, the other intern and I learned all about Gift of Life, its missi
Read more

Week 4 GOL (June 26-June 30)

Image
 Hello friends! Im back with another exciting week! I went to a Corn-hole for Corneas event and toured the ICUs of Temple University Hospital! Read below for more!  Monday (June 26): Today Francesca and I embarked on our journey to Temple University Hospital. Amidst parking confusion, crosswalks, and business clothes we finally found our location. We met up with Joe Paparo, Temple University's Hospital Services coordinator, and shadowed him for the first half of the day. We began in a conference room where he sent out his weekly email to the team updating and editing current cases that the Transplant Coordinators and himself are tracking. Then, we visited the Neuro ICU which was in a separate building adjacent to the main hospital. We just made a circle and said hi to some of the nurses. Part of the reason it is important for these Hospital Services coordinators to make their presence known serves as a reminder for nurses and physicians to refer any patients they may not have refe
Read more