Project option

The fourth year draws to an end with the completion of the 11 weeks project option period. Before I started the PO I was sceptical about it being something 'enjoyable'. I thought 11 weeks is a long time for such a small piece of work, and I would have loads of free time to persue my own things. Turns out quite the opposite really.

I must admitted that I have been extremely lucky to have found an extremely supportive supervisor who gathered a great team for me to work with (to be honest, they were so helpful that I felt like the only child). We started planning about 6 months beforehand and had numerous meetings before the start of the PO, and I started data collection on day 1 itself which is great and unusual for many students. I started feeling bored on the second day I started my data collection (staring at the computer all day!) and I asked if I could go onto the ward to do some practical things, and the answer was yes, of course! (or else, with my nature of favouring actions, I might as well be rotten) I spend my Friday on the ward and the odd days in the week observing speech and language therapist, videofluoroscopy etc.

As a result, I got to know almost the most people in the hospital that look after stroke patients. The research people, the acute and rehabilitation doctors and nurses as well as some of the therapists. My supervisor encouraged me to talk to many people, and I think was the best advice that I've ever received from the entire PO period. If I have been stuck in the office, I would not have been able to write so much on the 'Discussion' section about the practical difficulties of the screening test I was investigating. Who says research has to be for unsociable geeks only? Equally rewarding was that my findings have provided useful information for the clinical changes that will be implemented.

I also quite enjoyed the process of research. The unclarity of the objective frustrates me: I wasn't sure from the beginning that the way I collect the data was the best method to answer the research question, but I didn't know how to convey the doubt, until I went to see a statistician, and he just said it was a flawed way to answer the question, so we changed our research question, and I was much more comfortable since then. Research does made me think a lot, constantly I was thinking of critically appraising work of others and myself, which was quite taxing.

The doctors were too nice and I was given the opportunity to do loads of things (including written my first complete drug kardex in addition to many others like clerking in patients, bloods etc etc). I'd like to think that I have been a helpful member of the team. I feel quite sorry to leave (but yesterday I learnt that the junior doctors will also be moving on to other rotations soon after I leave, so I don't feel too bad now). But I don't think I'm completely finished with the stroke team yet. Still has this potential publication pending (although, now when I look at the way I've analysed my data again, I kind of feel it will not passed the peer review because it's just far from perfection), and I hope to be part of the discussion group as to how best to improve this screening test. And hope my abstract for the stroke forum gets accepted so I can go to Glasgow in December!


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