The content and perception of my digital humanities internship
Most of my internship work was cataloguing and photographing the medical instruments in the bag of Dr. Patrick Brangan, who was an Assistant Master of the Coombe from 1928-31, after which he returned to Kells and worked as a GP. He may need to have the equipment to handle all areas of his work as a general practitioner, which is why I believe he has a variety of surgical, dental, obstetric, and other medical instruments in his bag. The Coombe Hospital, where Dr. Patrick Brangan used to work as an Assistant Master, is one of the largest providers of women and newborn health care in the Republic of Ireland. Its founder, Margaret Boyle, spearheaded the development of our hospital over 200 years ago because she wanted to ensure that all women had access to the healthcare they needed and deserved. So maybe that's why, even though he eventually became a general practitioner, when I cataloged and photographed these tools, I found that obstetric devices made up a larger amount of his doctor's bag.
In fact, I don't think I would have participated in an internship related to medicine if it weren't for this internship experience. It was something I had never done before. I was a journalism major during university, and my involvement in the digital humanities program at Trinity was also extremely brief. The process of cataloging these medical instruments was with some problems and hurdles. As an illustration, I had to page through reference books from cover to cover to get the matching images because I wasn't familiar with all of them. Additionally, I learned something new every day and came across new medical instruments. I always think it is amazing since, as a Chinese person, I never imagine having the opportunity to participate in the Irish medical archives. It is really meaningful to me to be able to learn about so many different things.
I believe that I am probably more adept at taking pictures of and uploading these images of medical instruments than I am at cataloguing. Due to the fact that I studied photography during my undergraduate degree. Nevertheless, taking pictures of medical instruments is still new to me, so I might not be able to photograph some of them from the ideal angles if I don't know what they're used for or if I can't recognize similar items when I upload the pictures. Even yet, I still got a lot of positive feedback and praise for my pictures, which made me feel accomplished.
Because it is entirely different from the internships I've done in the past and the course of my studies, I believe it will be a memorable internship in my life. For me, it was an incredible experience. Perhaps it also helped me understand the purpose of digital humanities archives and tools better. We might be able to give the medical instrument a digital life in this way. So, in my opinion, there is amazing importance for all fields in archive preservation and the associated tools in the Digital Humanities field. I also want to express my gratitude to my internship supervisor Harriet and my wonderful colleagues for their support and help.
Wenjun Yang
MPhil in Digital Humanities and Culture, TCD