Did you get to talk to any the providers who were there and what they were there for? Did you see students?
I did see a whole lot of students. I saw a pretty good number of PhD students and PhDs. Two of them presented on how to define hyper-excitability within the concussion groups, and they were doing their PhD research on that. So it was interesting to see from a more psychological standpoint of how that plays into TBI.
How do you see your research informing your own clinical work as a future provider?
As of right now, questionnaires, especially within the pediatric group, are a little more subjective. It depends on the day that the patient potentially fills out the questionnaire as how they are going to rate their symptoms and other things like that. I think I have a better understanding, for some things, the need for more objective measures, too. Even when they don’t report symptoms anymore, they could still have chronic pain and be suffering even though they don’t show it. I think future me, who is a physician, will hopefully still understand that concept, that even though they might have resolved symptomatic symptoms they still might have physical symptoms that have gone on.
How did you hear about the Peter Morgane Fellowship?
I don’t recall how I came across it initially, but I remember talking with Dr. Arafat about it and she was pretty adamant that all medical students need research to be a little more competitive for their residency application, and after hearing that, and having a little previous research experience, I thought that I would apply for it.
Obviously, you got it and you were able to present. You mentioned before about how grateful you were to receive the scholarship. Do you want to expand a little on the opportunity it brought you?
Honestly, being able to research down in the Boston area was a great experience, and I don’t think it would have been as possible because I don’t live there anymore. Having a little of that expenditure waved by getting the scholarship really helped out. In addition, they funded a pretty good majority of my conference up to Toronto, so it made things a little bit easier access-wise.
What would you say to other students thinking of applying?
First of all, have an idea of what you want, but then also really determine what you want out of the experience. If you go in and you just want to research and that is all you do, that’s good because you get that experience. But look for an end goal: out of this research I wanted a presentation, or a publication, because that keeps you on track a little more and is able to also mark your progress.
So when you applied, did you already think about presenting at a conference?
Yeah, I think the end goal was always… that is even what I told the principle investigator when I went to potentially research with him in the summer. I said that I need something out of it at the end; I need something to show for it. I would like to at least get a poster presentation out of it and maybe a paper. I think for both of us it made it easier because we had a goal in mind. We both sort of worked on that instead of not really knowing what the other one wants and not having anything to show for it.