Hello- I wanted to write up a quick overview of the month of November before finals week begins! In the past 30 days I’ve split my time between my Teledermatology implementation project, a heart biopsy project, compiling a list of 100 needs, and exploring different jobs and companies. Each week a different aspect on my project “to-do” list rises to the top depending on deadlines, available resources, and momentum of the specific project.

If there’s something I’ve taken away from the month of November, it’s that simply juggling a workload is not good enough. Through lots of communication, I’ve learned how to efficiently prioritize and tackle my projects in a way that maximizes my time, and other people’s time as well. At this stage in my implementation project, a lot of things are out of my hands and rely on other people within IT support at the Barretos Cancer Hospital. Many email exchanges have been made, and I’m happy to say the email notification problem in my last blog post is nearly resolved!

(A big thank you to Livia who works at the Barretos Cancer Hospital for stepping in when I couldn’t and helping me resolve my REDCap technical issues from a continent away!!)

Meanwhile, I finalized my list of 100 medical needs for a deadline in mid-November. I narrowed this list down to my top 3 needs, which span fields in cardiology, women’s health, and pediatrics. Each GMI student presented their top 3 needs. It was so fun and interesting listening to everyone’s needs, as the most viable needs will turn into spring semester projects (and future GMI students’ projects!!!!).

Another project I’m working on is shared between Callie, me, and two MBA students named Samir and Kimi. We are essentially mimicking the startup process using a real need- in our case, a modified heart biopsy catheter. Our catheter would make the biopsy extraction process more standardized and accurate. This improves pathological diagnosis, physician stress of harming the patient, and lowers costs associated with biopsy risks. Working on an interdisciplinary team has been one of my favorite things this semester. I appreciate the different ideas and perspectives, and have learned lots of new things on the business side of medical devices. Our heart biopsy project is also mentored by a cardiac fellow named Jordan, who bends over backwards to make sure we have all the medical information we need.

Am I stressed? No. But GMI sure keeps me busy! I got to choose each of my projects from many options and tailor the projects to my personal and professional interests. That’s one of my favorite things about the GMI program at Rice- they integrate your interests and goals into the classes and projects!