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News of Alumni: Chris Jaicks '15
Chris Jaicks '15 is a 2019 graduate of MIT where he was a four-year member of the men's lightweight crew team and graduated with a degree in Course 20 (Biological Engineering). He is currently a research technician in the Ting Lab, which is within the Center for Cancer Research at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH).
He was recently featured as an "Engineer Spotlight" on the MIT Athletics website where he shared how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted his professional and personal life and the unique role he found for himself once work at his lab came to a halt due to the virus.
As Chris explains, "Many floors in MGH had to be converted to Intensive Care Units (ICUs) to help take care of the large number of COVID-19 patients. Part of the difficulty of converting all of these floors is that they do not have all the perfect equipment to function as usual. In order for patients to breathe properly, many of them are connected to ventilators which are normally hooked up to a central alarm system which alerts nurses and doctors that something is wrong. Ventilators were being brought to these “new” ICUs, but they couldn't be connected to this central alarm system."
However, once he learned that their were roles available for "vent listeners", he knew he had found the way that he could actively help in a place that had one of the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country.
"When I was on the floor, I was assigned a handful of rooms to observe and listen for any alarms. If I heard something, I immediately notified the nurses in charge of caring for that patient, to which they always sprang into action," said Chris. "Sometimes I was asked to help relay messages or send samples to the hospital lab, but my main job was really simply listening. I did it every weekend from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in April and May, until my services were no longer needed. Many people I encountered made sure to say that even my small job of listening for nurses and doctors contributed to making their very stressful lives a bit easier in this time of need."
You can read the entire spotlight by clicking here.
Congratulations, Chris!
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He was recently featured as an "Engineer Spotlight" on the MIT Athletics website where he shared how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted his professional and personal life and the unique role he found for himself once work at his lab came to a halt due to the virus.
As Chris explains, "Many floors in MGH had to be converted to Intensive Care Units (ICUs) to help take care of the large number of COVID-19 patients. Part of the difficulty of converting all of these floors is that they do not have all the perfect equipment to function as usual. In order for patients to breathe properly, many of them are connected to ventilators which are normally hooked up to a central alarm system which alerts nurses and doctors that something is wrong. Ventilators were being brought to these “new” ICUs, but they couldn't be connected to this central alarm system."
However, once he learned that their were roles available for "vent listeners", he knew he had found the way that he could actively help in a place that had one of the highest number of coronavirus cases in the country.
"When I was on the floor, I was assigned a handful of rooms to observe and listen for any alarms. If I heard something, I immediately notified the nurses in charge of caring for that patient, to which they always sprang into action," said Chris. "Sometimes I was asked to help relay messages or send samples to the hospital lab, but my main job was really simply listening. I did it every weekend from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. in April and May, until my services were no longer needed. Many people I encountered made sure to say that even my small job of listening for nurses and doctors contributed to making their very stressful lives a bit easier in this time of need."
You can read the entire spotlight by clicking here.
Congratulations, Chris!
Celebrating 200 Years of Jesuit Education in the Nation's Capital
