As of today, I have now completed 7 of 10 required courses for my MPH degree! This morning was our final in Epidemiology 2 and our next course starts on April 6th. Since beginning the program in September 2008, I have finished these classes
Epidemiology 1
Biostatistics 1
Decision Analysis
Clinical Trials
Health Behavioral Methods
Biostatistics 2
Epidemiology 2
Next month I take Program & Policy Evaluation. For descriptions of my courswork, see here. So, what did I learn in Epi 2? Well, we learn about study designs that are not randomized controlled trials – their benefits and advantages. It was very interesting. I am feeling a bit euphoric though — the coursework phase is ending soon and I get to transition to doing my actual research project pretty soon.
I know this is more statistics related, but here is a cartoon from xkcd
At the medical center where I work (Vandy), the staff often get emails of ongoing research studies as they look for participants. Last week, one came in my inbox that piqued my interest – they were looking for 4 and 6 year olds for a study to understand language processing. So, I signed Kaleya up. :-)
We went yesterday and it took about 30 minutes. The researcher showed Kaleya two videos of people talking about toys and then asked Kaleya some questions about what they saw on the video. As I observed this, it was clear to me they were asking questions of Kaleya that she cognitively does not understand. When I asked about it, the researcher informed me that yes, the trend they were seeing is that the 4 year olds do not “get it” and the 6 year olds do. So, it was highlighting the issue that something different was happening cognitively around that age.
Then, Kaleya was shown a picture of a robot and asked a series of questions. Again, I could see that the questions asked were a little bit more than she could grasp. But, throughout the whole thing, I was very impressed with how well Kaleya interacted with the researcher. She was downright charming. :-)
Check out this video that News & Public Affairs posted to the VUMC YouTube Channel last week. It highlights a project here at the medical center that leverages work done by the Informatics Center for which I work. I’ve not been involved in this project personally, but it is a great demonstration of the ways in which we help with patient care. And, I have been a patient in our emergency rooms a few times (as has Kaleya), so I’ve seen my own data on it. Cool. If you want to learn more about medical informatics in general, hit up Wikipedia. :-)
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