Internships provide students with opportunities to apply the skills they learned in class to real-world projects. For many students, that could be working with a team testing parts, assembling devices or optimizing systems. For biomedical engineering student Jenna Trewyn, it meant responding to an all-hands-on-deck response effort.

Trewyn served as the clinical engineering intern at Children’s Wisconsin where she worked on a variety of projects including performing preventative maintenance on medical devices, fabricating parts for existing equipment, putting together new medical devices, performing evaluations and more. While these projects were part of her everyday tasks, she also jumped in to help when the fire alarms in the helipad and hangar were tripped, causing significant water exposure and damage to the transportation equipment. Trewyn and the entire clinical engineering team sprang into action to clean the equipment to ensure it was up and running in time for a transport trip the next morning.

“It was a great experience to see how the Children’s Wisconsin clinical engineering team worked together to tackle a situation no one had ever seen before,” said Trewyn. “It was very eye opening to see how freak accidents can happen, and how clinical engineering teams must have plans and processes in place to deal with major accidents or system failures.”

Trewyn was recognized for her assistance by the vice president with a Bravo Spotlight Award. Ann Rovito, clinical engineering director, shared her appreciation for Trewyn’s willingness to step up during a challenging time.

“I am impressed that Jenna stayed late to help the team following an inadvertent release of the fire suppression systems on the helipad and hangar,” said Rovito. “Her time and work were so valuable because the cleaning, disassembling, reassembling and testing allowed our ground transports to reactivate. I appreciate how she jumped right in and worked until we got it done—nearly 7 p.m. that night.”

From responding to the emergency situation to working on her assigned projects, Trewyn is proud her work is making a positive impact on others. “It was an extremely fulfilling feeling knowing that by even completing small tasks, my help made someone else’s day a little easier.”

Trewyn had the ability to take on these projects thanks to her MSOE courses. “One of the biggest ways MSOE prepared me for this internship is by giving me the confidence to face new challenges. You really start to realize that because of the expectations MSOE puts on students, you know exactly what is expected of you in the ‘real world’ because it’s the same thing that’s expected of you every day.”

Originally from Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Trewyn was inspired by her registered nurse mom to pursue a career in the medical field and was intrigued by the “behind the scenes” aspect of biomedical engineering. “I think it’s amazing that biomedical engineers can positively impact so many patients’ lives without ever even meeting them.”

Trewyn is a member of MSOE’s softball team and enjoys visiting Major League Baseball stadiums—so far attending games at 11 different stadiums across the country. She is grateful for her experiences at MSOE and Children’s Wisconsin pushing her one step closer to achieving her goal of becoming a director or manager of a clinical engineering department in a hospital. “I cannot thank Dr. LaMack and Ann Rovito enough for working to create a partnership between the MSOE biomedical engineering program and Children’s Wisconsin. I am truly grateful for this opportunity, and I am excited to see what the future holds!”