Close to the Finish

My senior project is basically done now and it feels great to have it completed. Now I just have to get past the presentation and I am officially done. My portfolio is almost done so I can cross it off the list, but all I need to do is finish my slide show and finish writing notes for the presentation. Overall, I have had a great year doing my senior project and I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Although, I am nervous and am trying to prepare for my presentation, I look foreword to it and hope I do well.

Preparing for the Time Being

Recently I have started to prepare for my presentation in April. I have completed what was left to the log I created to discuss what I did when I shadowed my mentor. I also included some of what I had learned in my log, and can include more for the presentation itself. In addition I have started to gather all that I have done this past school year and put it in my portfolio. Overall, I am pretty nervous about all that is to happen in the next few months prior to graduation, but I am going to work hard to organize everything so I know what to do when the time comes.

A Hopeful Opportunity

I have researched my Dad's company just to make sure if they do grants and have found nothing where they donate money and do grants. My Dad had thought his company does do grants considering how large the company really is, but they do not. My Dad also researched to make sure if they do grants too, but unfortunately he found nothing as well. I thought that I could maybe send an email to his boss to see if it is possible to do a grant overall and I will send one soon. I really hope this will work, because this is probably the last grant opportunity I could acquire.

A Last Resort

Although I have not been able to succeed in getting a grant, I am not going to give up. Synthes, the company my dad works for may be able provide me with a grant. I talked to my dad about the grant and he had said that Synthes does some charities and donates money. I just need to email someone involved with donations of Synthes and hopefully I could get a grant soon. If not I would still have the skeleton I got as an anonymous donation, but it would be nice to get a donation with a grant.

Searching for more opportunity

Since I did not get a grant from Mary Black and Spartanburg Regional, I will have to try somewhere else. My dad works for a company called Synthes and possibly his company gives out grants. I will have to discuss this further with my father and maybe email his boss, but maybe I could get a grant, finally. However, I do not know if this will work out and then I would have to think of another medical organization to contact. I could possibly talk to my mentor and see what he thinks and hopefully I could get at least one grant, which would make me extremely enthusiastic.

Grant Requesting

This past week I sent my grant request email to the Mary Black Foundation. To my surprise I received a return email the next day. Unfortunately they cannot do general solicitation requests for grants. Now I will have to think of another hospital or company to send a grant too. Hopefully, I can receive a grant from some sort of organization soon, because I am not having much luck lately.

In the OR, once again.

This past Monday I was able to go into the operating room at Mary Black Hospital again. This time the procedures and some of the equipment were new, and I was able to see these new instruments and procedures. Now I did not really know what they used to do before they had this new equipment, but what I did know is that the surgeons and nurses seemed to like the new equipment. The operation performed was a lumbar fusion, where the surgeons put 4 screws on each side of the person's lumbar and connected rods to each screw. They also removed some of the cartilage disks in the lumbar and replaced it with plastic spacers for more support. All in all the surgery was about 5 hours long, but it was very interesting to watch and a great experience and I would love to see more surgeries in the future.