Ethan Lawrence

My second to last week has been one of the busiest, but most enjoyable, yet. To begin the week, I had to complete my timeline of Tazewell Community Hospital. To finish the timeline, I had to continue searching through annual reports and Roanoke Times newspaper articles. 

Once I finished, I started on a timeline of Rockbridge Memorial (previously called Stonewall Jackson). This hospital was a little tricker to gather as much information from Carilion on, as it has gone through a few periods of being owned and not-owned by Carilion. 

When I finished the timeline, I had my 5th interview of my internship. This interview was one I did not expect to be as good as it ended up turning out. The narrator of my Oral History interview is in her 42nd year working at Carilion, and she came with stories to prove it. She reflected on beginning her career in Environmental Services in the early 80’s, working and cleaning on every single floor and unit in all of the hospital buildings, then working as a ward clerk secretary, working as a bed coordinator and winning a Presidents Award for her work, and finally to her current position as the switchboard operator for calls to the hospital. 

I began the next day by going over to the hospital for my 6th oral history interview with a Multimedia Consultant who previously was the director of the hospital-based childhood development center. We talked about her time as the director, the history of the center, and its eventual closing in 1997 then got into her experience with media. Both interviews were very interesting looks into the different sides of Carilion technology, which is indispensable in keeping the hospital running smoothly. 

To finish the week, I went with my supervisor to the basement of the Medical Center to meet up with two former nurses and graduates of the Roanoke Memorial School of Nursing to examine what was in their storage space from the school. We found an old registry, grade book type of thing from 1906-1909, yearbooks, pictures from the 1930s-1970s, among many other things that we will begin to sift through and organize next week. 

These two weeks were focused around researching the history Carilion’s cardiovascular surgery unit (and the multitude of programs that are interwoven into the unit). Once I researched enough to formulate two sets of questions, I began preparing for my interviews with the lead Clinical Nursing Specialist for 40 years and the doctor who founded the Cardiovascular surgery program. 

I first interviewed the nurse and was able to hear about how much the technology and unit has changed and advanced. I also learned about the Mended Hearts Quilts Program. Those who undergo heart surgery at Carilion are sent a patch to design and send back, where it is then added onto a quilt and hung in the hospital. 

The second interview was even more interesting, as I was able to hear a firsthand account of beginning a heart surgery program at a hospital, then seeing it grow and help so many people around the Roanoke Valley. We talked about the Operating Room with Carilion’s cutting edge technological abilities to perform incredibly complicated and intricate surgeries. It was such an eye opening conversation. 

My first day of my fourth week at Carilion began with my second interview. I interviewed an employee of over forty year who has worked as in the Planning and Community Development department and as a consultant for a number of different departments and projects within Carilion.  We spoke about projects  she been been apart of and the many changes that she has seen in time with Carilion. After the interview, I transcribed the recording, edited the transcript, and began research for the next candidate. 

The rest of the week, I scheduled two more interviews with long-time employees in cardiac surgery and began to do background research for questions in the interview. 

In between researching, I was given collections of picture to archive in a binder. It is always really interesting seeing how different pictures from the late ‘90s are from those of today

My first day of my fourth week at Carilion began with my second interview. I interviewed an employee of over forty year who has worked as in the Planning and Community Development department and as a consultant for a number of different departments and projects within Carilion.  We spoke about projects  she been been apart of and the many changes that she has seen in time with Carilion. After the interview, I transcribed the recording, edited the transcript, and began research for the next candidate. 

The rest of the week, I scheduled two more interviews with long-time employees in cardiac surgery and began to do background research for questions in the interview. 

In between researching, I was given collections of picture to archive in a binder. For the archiving process, I seperated the negatives and the pictures and put them into their protective folders, labeled each folder with the name of collection, and stored them in their protective binders. It is always really interesting seeing how different pictures from the late ‘90s are from those of today.

My third week interning for Carilion picked up where it left off the week before. I began the week continuing to research more potential interview candidates. 

On the last day of the week, I conducted my first interview with the manager of Guest and Volunteer services. We had a fantastic conversation for almost an hour. We got into the challenges her department faced while battling through COVID (such as personally having to assist with Health Checks for visitors entering the hospital), her previous time with the Roanoke Times, and how working at the hospital and a newspaper are more similar than many would think. The interview was an eye opening look into the less “glamorous” jobs that make the hospital run with the smoothness it does. 

Following the interview, I spent the next 3 hours transcribing the audio into a 21 page word doc before heading home for the weekend. 

My first week at Carilion began quickly. When I first got there, I sat in on a meeting with the Marketing/Communication department that is working on the 125 year, history of the hospital project. Following this, I began familiarizing myself with how to conduct Oral History interviews, reading transcripts of Oral Histories conducted in Roanoke and reading a book ‘Century in Reflection’ about the first 100 years of Carilion’s history. This took up most of the first two days but on the third day, I began researching the first candidate I will be interviewing.
When the second week began, I was already becoming much more comfortable with the Oral History field and continued learning more about the process. In the morning, I learned to write an Into letter to send to the potential interviewee, requesting their participation in the study. After learning how to write an intro letter, I wrote one to my first candidate and we scheduled the interview for the following week. After getting confirmation, I continued to research her and wrote the questions that I would have to ask her when we met. In the afternoon, I joined 3 of the MarCom employees to tour a potential archive site for a potential Carilion exhibit project.
The next day, I joined another meeting with the department and listened as they discussed future plans and goals. Following the meeting, I sat down and reached out to my next interview candidate with an Intro letter. I quickly heard back that my second candidate would love to participate and began to research questions, however this candidate will be more challenging to find information on. Finally, to end my second week, I did my first practice interview with my supervisor.
This is bound to be a very fun and interesting internship. I have enjoyed learning about the oral history side of research and am extremely excited to continue researching and interviewing.