This week I spent my time reading articles from pubmed.com on studies similar to my own. Soon Dr. M and I will be working on writing up an abstract. An abstract basically encapsulates the breadth and depth of your research in 3-4 sentences. Today I began drafting up bullet points for what that might look like and will go over them with Dr. M next week. I never realized that clinical research would require so much reading and writing. I suppose that's why liberal arts schools have requirements across disciplines...even when the work you're directly doing is science and math you for sure need to be skilled in humanities!
I read 4 studies that were studying similar things as my own in order to get a feel for what my paper should end up looking like. I feel like I'm on the right track.
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This week I didn't actually go to the hospital but I was still hard at work. Dr. S asked me along with Dr. M to come with a finalized data collection sheet and I also had to complete CIT training on research ethics. I had to complete 14 reading modules and I was then quizzed at the end of each module. It was quite informative, covering topics from the ethics of genetic research to the Nuremberg trials and how the scientific community learned from the atrocities committed by Nazi scientists in that there needed to be safeguards for human test subjects. I also learned about th Tuskegee syphilis experiment, where black men were unwittingly given syphilis and then not treated even when a cure was found for the disease... Disheartening to say the least but it also gives me hope to know that systems are put in place to insure that such things never occur again.
We submitted the revised IRB form last Friday and are now awaiting approval. We have formally decided to look at hypertriglyceridemia induced acute pancreatitis as compared to acute pancreatitis caused by another means. In the meantime, I've been asked to decide what criteria we should focus on. Because I'm a high school student I probably won't be allowed to look at actual charts but Dr. S wants me to decide and research what statistical criteria will be most pertinent to our hypothesis.
Our hypothesis is: Hospitalized patients with acute pancreatitis and hypertriglyceridemia will have similar patient characteristics (demographics, clinical signs and laboratory values) but will have worse outcomes than other hospitalized patients with acute pancreatitis from other causes. What I need to do over the next two weeks is decide and research what demographics, clinical signs and laboratory values are relevant to our hypothesis. Dr. Stain pushed me in the right direction by giving me Rand's Criteria. John H. C. Ranson, MD, "was a surgeon and director of the division of general surgery at the NYU. He helped improve the treatment of pancreatitis and developed a widely used system for predicting the outcome of pancreatic disease" (from https://www.mdcalc.com/ransons-criteria-pancreatitis-mortality/.) Basically there are certain indicators for patients with some type of pancreatic disease as to what their outcome will be. Ranson's criteria uses stats that are taken upon admission and after 48 hours to calculate chance of mortality. For example, if a patient who comes in is over 55, has white blood cell counts of over 16k, has Glucose >200 mg/dL than that is considered to be severe pancreatitis. If after 48 hours the same patient has calcium levels at greater than 8 mg/dl and also needs more than 6L of fluids within that time the patient has a 40% predicted mortality. Over the next two weeks I'll need to identify more indicators that will be used to compare patients with hypertriglyceridemia induced pancreatitis and patients with pancreatitis that is caused by something else. Once I come up with ideas on what data we should use I'll be able to use my newly acquired skills in statistical analysis to prove or disprove our hypothesis! Needless to say, I'm very excited about the task at hand! Today I worked on submitting an IRB approval form. IRB stands for Institutional Review Board. I basically had to sum what research we would be performing in order to get it approved. This included formulating a formal hypothesis . Dr. S went and I went over how to fill out the form and then he sent me off to work on it. We had planned on going over the document at the end of my time at the hospital but unfortunately a meeting that he had scheduled ran over. We should be submitting this document by the end of the week.
This is what an IRB form looks like: |
Michaela BentonI'm lucky enough to go to this amazing school that has this amazing program that lets me learn amazing things. Archives
December 2017
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