Friday, April 21, 2017

Week Eight

Hi everyone! 

I hope all of you have enjoyed this experience, and that everything is coming together as we wrap up our Senior Projects in these final weeks! This week, my survey was officially sent out to the three sample groups of medical students. Although the process ended up being a really close call, I'm glad to have received responses from so many medical students! As the finishing touch to my project, I'll be meeting with Dr. Hartmark-Hill and University of Arizona's bio-statistician to analyze my data and its corresponding trends. 

I'm excited to see how the survey results turn out; hopefully my hypothesis that medical students practicing narrative medicine hold more value for patients and have better patient outcomes will be supported by the data. While I've been waiting for survey responses to trickle in, I've almost finished constructing my research paper. This has been an interesting challenge for my project in particular because the experiential results are so subjective. In the past, my academic research papers have been prominently objective with numerical data and graphs to support correlations and trends. Since narrative medicine is a field which is both subjective and objective, it's been a bit of an obstacle to find the right balance for a deliverable. 

After searching for previous academic papers on narrative medicine, I was able to form a structure for my paper that will include the numerical survey results, but rely heavily on experience-based data. As such, I've completed my abstract, background, introduction, and methodology sections with a focus on the workshops and lectures I participated in for training. Once I get my finalized data, I will finish up the results, discussion, and conclusion sections by integrating a social outlook into the numerical values. 

Aside from the paper, I've been working on my PowerPoint slides to reflect my study. I assure you progress is being made, but I'm realizing "Is this important?" and "Is this interesting?" are two questions with very different answers. 

It's exciting to see that after being the architect of my own study, I'll finally be able to hold tangible evidence in a field that is so new and still developing. Even though my Senior Project is close to an end, I feel that this can act as my launching point for an even more intricate study in college. It's been truly fascinating to see how much social perspectives can impact scientific procedures, and even more eye-opening to see how much we neglect that fact. I'm thankful to Dr. Hartmark-Hill and the physicians I was able to interact with for recognizing a hole in medicine that is often overlooked, and I admire their drive to re-humanize it. 

Thank you so much for checking in every week! 

Anivarya 

Friday, April 7, 2017

Week Seven

Welcome back! 

I hope the past week treated all of you well! Last week, I had the opportunity to shadow Dr. Pratt, an optometrist, in his private practice. During the work breaks, he exposed me to diagrams and models of the eye and followed that with techniques to understand the way vision works. Within the practice, vision care is their top priority, but by observing the physician-patient relationship, I got the sense that patient care is just as valuable to him. 


In comparing this shift to my previous ones, I found more room for implementing patient narration here because each appointment was so centered on how the patient is feeling, even if the visit was a simple annual checkup. At the beginning of each appointment, Dr. Pratt sat eye-level with the patient (a tip the UofA taught me to make patients feel comfortable), and asked if there was anything the patient wanted to address or ask before he began the examination. What I uncovered was that he used this to gear his own examination and vision care priorities, which not only left the patient more satisfied, but also allowed the doctor to offer better diagnosis and treatment. Throughout the procedure, Dr. Pratt was an active listener to patient storytelling whether that was related to their vision or not. Their willingness to share showed a form of trust he had created over the years with his patients, and it was exciting to see each patient leaving in a better mood than they came in. 


The rest of the week, I worked on finalizing my survey and making it official, especially focusing on the online version. Dr. Hartmark-Hill, my off-campus senior project adviser, introduced me to a software called Qualtrics which many researchers use for generating data and trends. I was able to form my own survey with a pre-programmed Likert Scale and set a sample size X value to equalize data. 

As promised in one of my first blog posts, the following are the questions my survey entails: 

1. Taking the time to ask a patient about their story is valuable to patient care (diagnosis, treatment, etc). 

Strongly Agree   Agree   Neither agree or disagree   Disagree   Strongly Disagree

2. Taking the time to ask a patient about their story is valuable to patient outcomes (improvements in health, safety, etc). 

Strongly Agree   Agree   Neither agree or disagree   Disagree   Strongly Disagree

3. Knowing the patient's story improves physician-patient relationships. 

Strongly Agree   Agree   Neither agree or disagree   Disagree   Strongly Disagree

4. Knowing the patient's story makes clinical practice more enjoyable. 

Strongly Agree   Agree   Neither agree or disagree   Disagree   Strongly Disagree

5. Knowing the patient's story can improve clinical team communication. 

Strongly Agree   Agree   Neither agree or disagree   Disagree   Strongly Disagree

6. Asking a patient about their story makes it more likely for them to return to the clinic. 
Strongly Agree   Agree   Neither agree or disagree   Disagree   Strongly Disagree

7. Better understanding one patient's story can increase awareness of the need to ask other patients about their story and consider unique factors influencing health in these other patients.
Strongly Agree   Agree   Neither agree or disagree   Disagree   Strongly Disagree

As always, thank you so much for reading, and best of luck to everyone as the year comes close to an end!!


Anivarya