In my short time as a Carle Rural Health and Farm Safety Intern, I have gained a lot of knowledge and have learned a lot about what goes into agriculture in the medical field. Prior to this internship I would have never even considered that agriculture played a role in the medical field. Part of my daily tasks at Carle reminds me of this importance every day. So far the most rewearding part of my internship has been working on my special project. I am in charge of creating farm emergency directories for Edgar, Coles, Douglas, Moultrie, Piatt, and Vermilion county, along with adding the finishing touches to the Champaign directory as well. There are many steps and different tasks that go along with putting these directories together. First, I had to review all of the progress done by the previous intern on this project, learn what she did and try to pick up from there. I had to find what companies still needed to be contacted. In each county I am responsible for contacting the grain elevators, fertilizer/chemical companies, machinery companies, and fire departments. Once I call them I have to get either their email or fax so I can send out the questionare for the directory. When I recieve the completed forms I then have to enter all of the data into the computer. These forms include information on contacts and tools the companies have in the event of a farm emergency so that the fire departments can best react to each situation. I then have to keep in contact with the companies that have not returned a form yet. From there I have created the rough draft of the directories which includes compiling all of the information from each company into a nice looking format. Now I have to send the rough drafts to each county for editing/corrections. Once those come back I can then finalize the directories and send them out to the fire departments for use. While this is a huge project I have thoroughly enjoyed putting my hard work into it and the the pay off for the completion of this project will be immense. I can't wait to see what else I get to work on after this.
