After nearly a full month of winter break, I’m ready to bring my projects back up to speed.
Josh, Dr. Richardson and I were invited to present our work in telemedicine at MD Anderson on January 19. I spent the majority of the week prior working on the presentation and putting the finishing touches on my REDCap project. Aside from showing some PowerPoint slides, I planned on recording some videos of the app and also giving a live demonstration. In past experiences, switching up the medium of information keeps the audience engaged. The hour-long presentation went great, and it was a great opportunity to share our work with the many physicians, nurses, and researchers at MD Anderson who also use REDCap in their projects!
A new project has also been launched with Ryan, Siri, Sanjana, and me. We are validating a need in premature babies at risk of retinopathy. It’s an interesting problem Sanjana originally found last semester. More premature born babies in developing countries are living due to increased life-sustaining technologies; however, a lack of trained neonatal ophthalmologists and a high-coverage screening method means some babies who show early signs of retinopathy may not be diagnosed. Early and mid-stage retinopathy is completely preventable and treatable, yet once it reaches later stages, a child risks complete blindness. Premature-induced retinopathy accounts for 25% of all childhood blindness in Mexico and other similar developing countries.This is a problem we can solve. Our team estimates in 3-4 months we’ll have several prototyped ideas that a future GMI student can take on and turn into a reality.
It’s never a dull day at GMI with juggling presentations, classes, projects, and job applications. For the next month, I plan on completing paperwork and gathering resources needed for a clinical trial in Brazil in March. Exciting things ahead!