Tours of Shriners Hospital for Children and the Wastewater Quality Town Branch Facility

      On Wednesday, July 19, the SURF participants toured the new Shriner's facility that is now on the UK Healthcare campus.  We learned about the Shriners Hospitals for Children which specialize in orthopedics, burn care, spinal cord injury and cleft lip and palate.  These hospitals typically team up with academic medical centers.  The Shriners Hopital in Lexington specializes in in orthopedics and is an out-patient facility.  Many of the phycisians who provide care at Shriners are also University of Kentucky faculty members.  The facility has been designed specifically for childern and incoporates art and natural lighting to provide a comforting environment.  You can read more about this facility here.

     On Thursday, the SURF and SURES participants took a tour of the Wastewater Quality Town Branch Facility and Laboratory guided by Dr. David Price.  The processes involve removal of large items such as branches, aeration to encourage bacterial decomposition, transfer to large holding tanks and finally to chlorination.  The tests performed in the laboratory include analyses of coliform and chorine levels.  The test results are available to the public.  This trip could probably be described as one of "sensory overload".  Since it was such a hot day, I asked everyone if they still had an appetite for ice cream.  Fortunately, ice cream was still appealing, so we met at Crank and Boom to help restore our sensory balance.