Wednesday- Week 3

By Meghan Shanahan

It is Wednesday already?!? I defiantly was not prepared to write this blog, I feel as thought this week has been flying by. We are already in week three of school and since we walk for graduation in May the school is already talking about it! Yes, that right I officially found out that we walk on May 16^th 2015 at 5:30 PM. Now just because we walk for graduation does not mean that we are done with school. We actually have 1 more class after we walk. We are officially done with school the first week of August, and let me tell you I cannot wait!

My thesis keeps changing since I have started thinking of what to do. I was originally going to design a Pediatric Urgent Care center in the Lincoln Park Neighborhood in Chicago. Then I changed it to a Pediatric Emergency Department that I then finally and hopefully will not change anymore is a Emergency department that entails a pediatric, and adult emergency services within one Emergency Department building. This Emergency Department will have shared and individual spaces for pediatric, and adult. The location for my thesis is at Loyola Medical Center in Maywood, Illinois. This emergency department is levels 1 trauma center the highest level of emergency healthcare available. The current emergency department is very old and out of date. The current pediatric emergency care is also very minimal, so creating the pediatric emergency department would expand that. The new emergency department will be located just north of the existing ED. Currently the lot that will be used for the ED is an employ parking lot. There is also a helipad that is located just west of the site. My plan is to take the employ lot for my site, but then move the helipad to the roof of the emergency department building. This will free up space in the other lot to accommodate for parking that has been removed. I am very excited and have been working really hard of my thesis; I am currently trying to layout a initial floor plan on the site. In two weeks we are having out first presentation on our thesis, so that will be very exciting!

In Carbondale since the last time, the only new things that I have done were participating in Polar Bear. It was defiantly a very interesting thing that I never got in my undergrad. Being at a commuter school in the city versus being in a college town defiantly has its perks. Overall I had a lot of fun with some very good friends.