As a rising senior Engineering student concentrating in Biomedical Engineering at Wake Forest University, I knew whatever internship I pursued this summer would be a fantastic way for me to determine what I would like to do for a career. Being a member of e-NABLE, a club that 3D prints prosthetic limbs, I knew I was eager to get a chance to work in the medical device industry. I started applying to jobs early in the fall semester of my junior year and was glad about all the opportunities CONMED had posted for internships.

The interview process went smoothly, and I accepted a position as an R&D Engineering Intern at CONMED's newly acquired location in New Haven, CT. Throughout the summer I developed many tangible skills that not only helped me to thrive as an R&D engineer in the medical device world, but also helped me explore different roles that exist in a company like CONMED.

What I appreciated most about my internship was that there was a clear list of goals provided to me at our orientation that laid out my responsibilities and projects I would be working on this summer. Additionally, CONMED’s commitment to following their 5 Pillars helped me get a sense of what is important to the company and was easily seen in the ways that the employees conducted themselves every day.

Weekly, we had intern presentations with important leaders from a range of departments. Since I was not located at a main CONMED site like Largo or Utica, networking meant searching for different people to speak with virtually to learn about new roles. For me this looked like talking to sales representatives, marketing development managers and directors, former CEOs, plant managers, members of the strategy and corporate development team, product managers, and more! The more people I spoke to, the more I realized how necessary networking is, especially when you are new to a company. Some of the people I spoke with worked on the BioBrace®, but many of them were from different departments. By speaking to everyone, I was able to get advice from people in various parts of their careers, with different college majors, and different experiences before working at CONMED. All these employees had in common their enthusiasm to be a part of a company like CONMED that prioritizes their commitments to innovation, accessibility, customers, and employees. Additionally, these employees genuinely wanted to see me succeed.

One of my favorite things that I learned from working with the BioBrace® group was the ability to “work hard, play hard.” The fellow engineers I worked with made sure to always stay committed to the task at hand, prioritizing patient safety and reliability, but also never missed an opportunity to have homemade pie in the middle of the day for a coworker’s birthday. My manager made sure to always give me appropriately challenging tasks that encouraged me to go beyond my comfort zone and learn about new opportunities. The balance that we strived to achieve helped me stay on focus for tasks like developing processes to support manufacturing scale up activities, supporting hands on feasibility testing for biomechanical studies and new product development, and completing literature research to gain knowledge and understanding of the field.

This internship has been a fantastic way for me to get exposure to the competitive and intense world of medical devices, but in a fun and exciting way with my team. Every day at the internship was an opportunity to learn or try something new if you are willing to put in the effort. While like many jobs there are difficulties that occur, the main point the BioBrace® team taught me was to not get discouraged by a setback, rather to use the knowledge you obtained from the situation to try again and do better!

Interested in learning more about CONMED’s internship program? Check out our internship page, here.