SSRS from a good friend of mine...

So, here follows a report from one of my friends (yes, I did get their express permission!) for their involvement in the SSRS program.

"The aim of the study is to determine the impact of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) on chronic cough in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA). This is a single-blind, randomized, controlled and parallel group study of the effect of nasal CPAP on cough in patients with proven OSA and cough. Patients are recruited prior to their commencement of CPAP treatment and are allocated to either treatment group (CPAP with treatment pressure) or control group (CPAP with sham pressure). Cough data is collected 4 times during the study: at baseline, 1 week review, 1 month review and 2 month review respectively. This is achieved by using the 24 hours Ambulatory Cough Monitor and patients’ self assessment through completing the Leicester cough questionnaire. At the conclusion of the study cough results will be compared between the two groups to determine the effect of nasal CPAP on cough parameters including frequency, sensitivity, threshold and Quality of life in patients with proven OSA and chronic cough.

My main involvement and responsibility in this project was patient recruitment in the Concord and Liverpool hospital sleep lab. This involves presentation of the project, communication, negotiation with patient and answering patient queries. Relationship building and maintenance with Concord and Liverpool sleep lab staff was important, as frequent liaison with sleep lab scientific officers was required to follow up patient reports. My other responsibilities include data entry and maintenance of patient information in excel spreadsheet, as well as delivery and pick up of the cough monitor at the patient’s preferred time and location.

This project gave me an opportunity to gain a basic understanding of the clinical research process, the complexity in its set up and the difficulties that the researcher may encounter. A better understanding of sleep apnoea in the clinical setting was also attained. Patient recruitment was a challenge however it helped to improve my communication, presentation and negotiation skills in the process. Managing different aspect of this project helped me to further develop my organization skills."

A finger in all the pies...

So as I'm beginning to reach the end of my student summer research scholarship (SSRS), with about 3 weeks remaining, it appears that the most of my time has actually not been dedicated to a single project, but rather to a variety of projects running at the same time, by different researchers, in the same laboratories. It's been a great learning experience in terms of what is happening at the university's labs, and was not only observational but also included some hands-on experience such as the preparation of a salt solution, miniaturisation of pipette diameters, and taking part in experiments both as subjects and being involved in the running of them. The one thing that I want to see before I finish up is what actually happens when there are no SSRS students around, and I've yet to see the boring side of research - except the rather long waits during experiments when either waiting for something to happen, or trying to find a nerve and patiently moving around a recording needle in the vicinity of that aforementioned nerve. Ok, which can get a bit tedious. I've remarked to my supervisor that it seems the interesting side of research is presented in the scholarship, and he agreed; which is fair enough, and great for the students on this scholarship :)

As an aside, I've started to at least try to prepare for this upcoming semester's work. Promises of a long hard grind for this year have shaken me to start studying near the end of the holidays - a good thing or a bad thing, I am not sure. Surprisingly though, I've found that I've gone out with my friends a lot more than during the break between high school and university, despite the SSRS. It's great to catch up with high school friends after a few months; it does make me miss them. Although I do not miss the hidden pencil case/calculator/bottle/bag/anything that belongs to me. Or the 'friendly' punches.

Happy New Year!

So, with the start of a new year, there begins fresh aspirations, old wishes and another chance to do something interesting with the life you live. For me, this meant a new list of resolutions (I am proud to say that almost half of my resolutions for 2009 were met), which included some old ones (the ones from 2009 that weren't met), and, as for the something interesting...well...I went back to research today.
Yes, it is January 4th, the first Monday of the new year and I already logged a day at the labs, albeit another relaxed one. I have a feeling my progress in terms of attendance would be severely hindered though, thanks to two events: 1) Cityrail trackwork...on WEEKDAYS! Forcing me to take a train to the city, before coming down to Macarthur; and thus lengthening the travel time to a hint under two hours... and 2) Ramp trackwork. There is a single ramp connecting the station to the UWS campus; the alternative is walking around the other side to the shopping centre, across a large bridge and into the other entrance of our uni. Methinks a car would solve this, but alas, still, I am more than three score hours away from that lofty 120 hour L's requirement...
So, these two will continue for the next two weeks, and I hope I won't have to travel too many times to the campus. Else, I will be trying my best to pass off driving to uni with my dad as 'L's driving practise'.

Edit: Well, it's actually the 5th now. Dang it, failed blog post.

UWS LOVE

So, today was examination results day. A state holiday observed in respect for the stressed out students of UWS. Naww, I wish...
Anyway, I'm on a super-high; my end-of-year marks were enough to cover for my so-so pass score in the first semester, and as a result I'm sitting on a comfortable credit average :) And so far, the news from the rest of my cohort has been quite positive - unfortunately, it seems we had a drought of HDs...
So, in the UWS faculty, there's been talk of implementing an Honours system (you know, those ppl with MBBS(Hon.)) which involves a fairly relaxed (200 hours spread over two years) research project, and doing well academically. There's also been talk of a combined MBBS/PhD program - we have a sole student who did the Bachelor of Medical Research, who's also been funded for a PhD; kudos to her for being a trailblazer :) The PhD would add an extra 3 years; I don't think it will come under the 7-years-at-uni rule (the maximum amount of time you can stay in uni, being funded as a CSP place, is 7 years, if you're not over 25) though - otherwise I don't know what would happen. Also, it seems to be a pathway from the Bachelor of Medical Research. All of this interests me, since I'm considering clinical research in the future, and I guess it bodes well for UWS, offering these additional degrees/letters in your degree.
Today in the labs, we set up another experiment; although on paper it appears as if there were 3 separate projects with 3 different students, we seem to work together. Which is cool, which is cool. In fact, there hasn't been much time 1-on-1, excepting the early (for the holidays) mornings when there's no-one else but researchers and receptionists (who are rather friendly, I must add). We also got a pretty hefty insight into why lecturers sometimes can't make lectures or don't prepare them to as high a standard as we'd like (page numbers, nice Powerpoint design) - our Year 1 co-ordinator was running an experiment for about 30 hours straight, with monitoring around the clock. When this type of experiment is done regularly, rather than as a one-off stint, I could see how it would eat up your time - not to mention, keeping up to date with what everyone else is doing in their labs, analysing data, and writing up goodness knows what (A thesis? An outline?)
I've also found that research is very techy. Why am I surprised, I'm not sure (I should've expected it...) but the amount of software, hardware and even the presence of programming/coding scripts was bewildering. Right up my alley, then.

And back to work again...?

On Tuesday I had my first meeting with my SSRS project co-ordinator/supervisor; I finally found out what my project was actually about (although the title "Perivascular Pain" was, in the end, a surprisingly good summary for the project) - essentially investigating a cause for migraine, more specifically a hypothesis regarding how nerves suddenly activate themselves to send pain signals during a migraine attack. It got me pretty fired up - I was reading a few papers he gave me, and it seems that there hasn't really been a breakthrough in understanding migraines for the last...15 or so years (papers dated from 1994-2004, no difference). I'm supposed to do some 'light' reading so that I can understand the project better, and I really want to, but once again, procrastination calls, especially since it's the holidays and (rightfully) I feel like doing absolutely nothing (constructive). Had quite a few friends come over since the start of the hols, they're all from high school so I haven't seen them for a while. For some reason though, my parents are still annoyed at me playing computer games. During. The. Holidays. WHY? WHYYYYY....
Anyway, MedBALL is tomorrow! It's a ball (i.e. formal/dance thing, not a round thing you kick) organised by our awesome UWS Med Society, with the theme 'masquerade'. I went to Lincraft (craft store) of my own accord for the first time ever; bought some cloth, and devoted yesterday night to stitching, and periodically poking myself with the needle. I think I'm getting quite good at threading the eye (of the needle) - a very useful skill to please elderly people :) Now all I need is a way to get to the venue...and what to eat for dinner. Big thoughts.

Hip hip hooray

You could treat this title both literally and sarcastically.
In a literal sense (always good to break the good news first, right?), my summer holidays have just been planned out for me! UWS sent out letters for acceptance into their SSRS (Student Summer Research Scholarship - 6-8 weeks full-time on a research project) and I received one in the mail a few days ago. So it looks like I'll at least be doing something constructive this summer. I also turned 18 recently (kind of hard to perpetuate the med-students-are-drinkers culture if you can't legally drink) but I haven't exploited any of my newly-found (for me) privileges yet. Might see whether I can get a credit card (I am a very, very responsible spender) or my personal Paypal account (Once again, very responsible). I think 18 seems quite young to be given all these privileges though - but meh, who am I to complain, hehe. I've also managed to resurrect my PDA from the dead, thanks to a factory settings hard reset (basically an entire wipe-down of the PDA) - so I'm hopefully going to be using that as a learning(read: procrastination) device for times when a netbook is inappropriate (whipping out a netbook during ward rounds? hmmm....)
PPD today, our last session for this year, was pretty good; we did our health professionals informal speech presentation thing, and had some really interesting insights; for example, the differing viewpoints of consultants, trainee doctors, and patients.
Sarcastically, it is drawing ever so closer to the final exams - only two and a bit weeks left. We received our practice anatomy test results back, and suffice to say, my mark was hardly amazing. We also have our formative OSCEs tomorrow (clinical examinations), for which the majority of our grade are panicking about (including yours truly). So.... in essence, HSC students, do not worry about nearing the end of exams and stress; there's plenty more awaiting you!