Check Out Levi Endelman's Amazing Internship!

Greetings from Denver! My name is Levi Endelman and I’m a rising fourth year biochemistry and biology major out here at Wartburg West. My internship out here is with the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner (DOME) at Denver Health. My internship placement is unique in that I am the first Wartburg student (and potentially the first Iowan) to intern at the medical examiner’s office.

I am just beginning my third week at my internship and I love it. My duties include assisting with all of the daily operations of the morgue and, when there are cases to be completed, I assist with autopsies and external examinations. I’ve learned how to do everything from forensic photography to fingerprinting to drawing vitreous humor samples (if you want to know what that is, look it up; I won’t put it here for the sake of people who don’t want to know what that involves). In the next couple of weeks I will also be taught how to properly open the skull cap during an autopsy in order to remove the brain, brain stem, and pituitary gland to aid in the determination of the cause of death.

Thus far, this internship has been everything I had hoped it would be and more. I am one of about twelve interns that rotate through every few days. I work 3-4 days per week for 8.5-11 hours per day. This internship has allowed me to apply several of the things that I have learned in my anatomy and physiology and biochemistry classes at Wartburg. The learning pace at this internship has been extremely fast, but I have felt well equipped to handle it. I have felt very welcomed at this internship and the technicians who supervise us interns are absolutely phenomenal people.

. I am in the process of applying to another internship at the medical examiner’s office in Boulder County to the northwest where I will be doing approximately the same thing. This will push my weekly time commitment to somewhere around 40-55 hours per week, which I think is awesome as I want to capitalize upon the opportunities out here while I can. I’m enjoying myself and my internship.

Read About Kaitlyn's Exciting Internship at Wartburg West

            Hello everyone! My name is Kaitlyn Williams and my internship placement for the summer is at Denver’s Department of Environmental Health focusing mostly on water quality and mosquito control. So far, my biggest project has been community outreach. I’m working on creating plans so that the community can know everything Denver is doing. A big part of this is taking scientific documents and translating them to a language someone with no scientific background can understand. I find this particularly exciting because it’s a great combination of my chemistry and communications majors!

            I think the best part of my internship was yesterday. I got to go up to Summit Lake which is very close to the peak of Mount Evans. There I assisted and was trained on taking samples. It was absolutely gorgeous weather and the view was amazing. We were watching the snow melt off the peak and run into the water we were sampling. On the way down we even got to see a pack of sheep running. I can’t believe how lucky I am to get to do things like that for my internship.

            Denver itself is absolutely amazing. I love that I’m able to do so many different things whether it's attending that weekend’s festival, going hiking, or eating dinner at a piano bar with friends. Wartburg West is an experience I will never forget and I’m having such a good time. I’m very glad I came out to Denver this summer.