Here students will provide monthly updates on their projects and utilize the page as a resource for feedback, guidance, and direction. You can attach documents, images, post links, or use the discussion text box to provide your update.
Student peers and community partners are encouraged to comment, provide suggestions, and ask questions regarding the updates.
The Saturday Hoops fall sessions start Sept. 30th. So I have re-confirmed with my contact my project outline and will hopefully come up with precise dates to do my specific tasks within the next couple weeks. I mainly need to sit down and brainstorm dates, who I will reach out to to be the speaker for those dates and any craft ideas. I also have been confirmed as a yoga station instructor at the Winton Hills location for the fall. My IRB application is in the works and I should be finishing it up this week/weekend after ERAS application things are finalized.
In Walnut hills so far in the last few months, I have been attending many friday food distribution events, gardened in some of the community gardens, assisted in health screenings, and started attending some community meetings to really understand the needs of the community. For our project, Colleen and I will be working with a nutritionist to help conduct cardiovascular health classes and draft a curriculum for a maternal health course they plan to complete early 2024. I have not started my IRB yet, but plan to take a look at this in the next couple of weeks to see how this will work with our planned project! I plan to just keep getting volunteering hours within the community over the next few months whenever I have some free time.
My work with Green Umbrella has gone excellent thus far. Over the past month I have been meeting with the staff in person and attending community events to meet my co-workers. I attended the Climate and Health symposium put on by UC to discuss a P20 grant which would enable to UC to have a climate and health research center. In addition, I created one-pages to summarize work Green Umbrella had done in the past in collaboration with the NAACP. The first one-pager was about a fire department training facility that was performing burnings and lighting explosives 2 blocks from an elementary school. The second was a community meeting to determine the exposure to asthma and environmental exposures in Avondale. One major goal over the coming months is to design a PSA campaign for the 2024 year. The next is to generate a one-page about the health impacts of climate change in Cincinnati for public health officials. Last night I attended Green Umbrella’s monthly green drinks event where I met the former director of sustainability for the city of Cincinnati. This was an awesome chance to learn for someone who tons of experience.
Hi! I have been volunteering at the Roberts Academy Health Works clinic. I recently surveyed the patients and their families to determine what exactly I should focus on in my intervention. I learned that they preferred I focus on health education rather than fitness, so the “fit kits” I planned with the Health Works nutritionist will only contain educational materials, recipes, and ingredients to create culturally appropriate recipes. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon cooking and photographing meals with the recommended food groups and portion sizes that will be used as one of the education materials. They are not ready yet, but I’m happy to attach a screenshot of my camera roll for the update! Also, I am working on the IRB to collect data before and after my intervention on a “veggie meter” that measures beta-carotene levels. It should be finished within the next few days.
I have completed my orientation with Our Daily Bread and familiarized myself with the staff and processes. I attended the fall board meeting and the special committee meeting for the annual survey. I am currently drafting changes to the annual survey to capture a better estimation of the homeless population in OTR according to the HUD definition and adding questions for quality improvement projects happening at ODB. With the submission of ERAS I am looking forward to administering the survey and volunteering with ODB. My IRB is in the works!
I have a brief update, just a couple things to add from the last discussion we had at the virtual check in! I attended the SRFC all-team meeting this week and discussed project options more in-depth with the co-chairs. We decided that moving forward with the appointment scheduling project would likely be the most beneficial for the population we serve as well as the clinic. I’ve started brainstorming the survey format and will begin working on the IRB application shortly!
Working with the Walnut Hills Redevelopment foundation has been going well. My free time has been limited due to back to back AI rotations and therefore I have not been able to volunteer as much as I had been hoping but looking forward to having a lot of free time in 2 weeks. I hope to start helping out in the community through the gardens, Friday Food and Fun events and attending monthly meetings. Alexa and I have been able to attend a few community meeting where we were able to learn more about what the people within the community are looking for. We both volunteered at The Walk to Save Black Mens Lives where we tested community member’s blood sugar and cholesterol. We also met a nutritionist who is hoping to do teaching with the community members regarding cardiovascular health. We will help prepare these lessons but also we will use feedback from the community members to utilize what we learn to create another teaching session in early 2024 regarding maternal health. We are hoping to discuss the details of our project and finalize our thoughts to submit the IRB here soon.
My project will be encompassing racial justice educational trainings for the Cincinnati Health Department as well as synthesizing research I have conducted online into understandable advocacy alerts. I have had 3 meetings with my community partner so far. The first meeting was discussing my role decided on project ideas. My second meeting we discussed the IRB which has been submitted. I am currently working on edits for the IRB. My most recent meeting, we discussed my initial literature review surrounding the health impact of microaggressions, implicit biases, and explicit biases. Around the beginning of October, I will be submitting powerpoint slides synthesizing the information I gleaned as well as visuals. I will be attending the trainings if my schedule allows. For my project, I will continue to conduct a literature review for each training’s topic and how it relates to health outcomes. I will continue to put this information into slides as well as develop scenarios for each training. I am also in the process of editing the surveys for the trainings. The trainings will be conducted October-March.
I have oriented myself with St. Joseph’s Home and have set up a regular volunteer schedule. In volunteering, I am involved at the Blue Ash campus and help with their day-programs to set-up and assist residents with planned events. I am currently working on assessing the scheduling for daily activities to determine what further enriching activities can be planned, and creating an inclusive survey system to collect responses. I plan to take a look at IRB soon!
This month I was able to meet with my contacts at People Working Cooperatively to go over materials for my project in person. We had previously met virtually and discussed the general outline of the project. My work with the organization will mainly be focused on their asthma prevention work. I will be surveying and interviewing families that receive home interventions from PWC to reduce the impact of the home environment on asthma exacerbations and symptoms. The goal of the main project will be to conduct the survey and interviews and develop a presentation to show the subjective benefit of the interventions, and this data can then be presented to healthcare providers to encourage increased usage of the services for their patients. There are also opportunities for a few side projects. PWC has a previously approved pilot that they are conducting with Cincinnati Children’s, but they have had difficulty reaching the minimum number of participants and would like me to help identify barriers to progress. There will also be opportunities to participate in home health evaluations and direct service events throughout the year, which is exciting. In our last meeting, we arranged a regular meeting schedule for updates and went through the materials that I would need to complete the SLAC approval. This is in progress and we are planning to meet to go over the proposal draft once completed.
The Family First initiative is in need of organizing and inventorying so within the next few weeks I will be meeting with Taylor to pack the diapers already present into packs of 100, consolidate all the diapers into one location, use an excel sheet to start tracking diapers and their sizes etc. My IRB application will be finished this week as well.
October has been a busy month with a lot going on. Green Umbrella had their annual meeting which I volunteered at. We also have a Climate and Health webinar Nov 1st. Most of my time has been preparing our document for release next week. This has centered around utilizing climate projections for 2050 to estimate disease morbidity such as heat-related illness, COPD exacerbations, and Lyme disease incidence. In addition to this, I have been completing background research for public service announcements around climate change, environmental sustainability, and health that will be released starting January 2024. These PSAs will be sent out through county public health departments to draw attention to some key issues around sustainability.
After our webinar on Nov 1st, I will be put forth as a consultant for local public health departments who want to learn more about the relationships between climate and health.
This month the annual guest survey was drafted and finalized. It will go before the board this coming Wednesday for final approval. After that, I will be participating in survey administration with several Our Daily Bread staff members. I am also identifying additional times where I can volunteer in the kitchen in the coming weeks.
This month, I have been continuing my literature review as well as compiling my findings into powerpoint slides to be used at future teachings. I also attending my first teaching earlier in the month to get acquainted with how the trainings run. My slides/info won’t be used until the 3rd training in December. I also submitted my final IRB with its finished edits. Lastly, I went to an event that my community partner was a part of last week to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the civil rights March and Vote for Freedom in Cincinnati. Next month I will continue to work on the trainings to prepare for the December training.
During October, I have continued to meet with my contacts from PWC and we have started making progress on a few different projects. I am developing the new and improved survey that we will use send to clients before and after home improvements are made. A referral program was started a few years ago with the CCHMC environmental health clinic but there has been difficulty finding participants. I’ve reached out to members of this clinic to get insight on what obstacles are preventing participants from entering the study. We’ve also started a literature review to see how other non-medical service organizations have successfully developed health impact assessments for the services they provide. Finding these successful examples will hopefully provide insight into how to use our survey most effectively to asses the impacts of PWC’s home improvements.
During this month, I have volunteered a number of times at my community site. I also have reached out to LMSA and SNMA student orgs to recruit faculty involved in the organization and members themselves to volunteer one weekend. I am hoping to find faculty that will speak to the kids about their success and any barriers they had to overcome to pursue medicine. I think it is imperative that the kids can identify with the speakers and see themselves becoming the incredible people that speak to them.
During the month of October, I’ve volunteered in-person at the Healing Center, attended SRFC meetings, and am about to complete my IRB/SLAC application. In the coming weeks, I plan to continue volunteering in-person, present a proposal of my project to SRFC leadership, and look into the logistics of survey distribution.
In the second half of October I have had some time off of clinical rotations which has given me an opportunity to be more present in the community. I have been able to participate in a few Friday Food Event sessions as well as the planning meeting for our project partnering with the American Heart Association and nutritionist from UC discussing cardiovascular health with the participants. We have decided to obtain subjective data from participants to understand the impact the classes has on the people in the community as well as the leadership who is putting on the events. I have been able to attend community meetings discussing housing standards as well as health opportunities and will help spread the word regarding the Friday Food and Fun events. Our IRB is essentially complete we are just reviewing it and will submit shortly. Looking forward to continue to have time to volunteer within the community the next month.
This month I worked on the IRB for my project which helped me realize I needed to shift from tracking outcome data via the veggie-meter to a pre- and post-education survey. I then created the pre and post-education survey that I will be using to assess how much the participants learned from my presentation. The questions address the most appropriate food groups and their appropriate portion sizes. I am looking forward to volunteering at the clinic again in a little over a week!
This month, I have been continuing to complete a literature review and work on my trainings. I also attended the 2nd training this week which covered privilege. At the training next month, my slides/info/activities will be used regarding stereotypes and negative health impacts. This month, I also have been working on crafting social media posts for YWCA regarding current public policy. My IRB was also accepted this month, so that is all done!
This month, the bulk of my time has been spent on our public service announcement project. We are creating content on climate change and health to be discussed each month of the 2024 calendar year. It is going well thus far, but I have had some difficulty navigating a non-profit hierarchy that is different than what I am accustomed to in academia. Overall, this is a good learning experience because I can always become better at navigating diverse work environments.
Since my last update, I’ve created an inventory form for Family First’s diaper supplies and a social determinants of health survey. As discussed at our last meeting, the big hurdle currently is being present to volunteer in person when I have rotations lined up for the rest of the academic year. Going forward I will be doing more research on peer institutions approach to assisting students with children per Joy the manager of the program and will make an effort to regularly schedule communication.
November update! My IRB was completed and submitted – now undergoing preliminary review. I sent a copy of the IRB to my community partners and faculty mentors for their feedback. From my mentors, I received some helpful edits to the survey that I will be administering to Healing Center guests. Still waiting to hear back from my community partner on their thoughts on how I can improve the project and specifically the survey. Planning to hopefully volunteer in-person next month and start setting up tools for survey administration. I will likely need to present to SRFC leadership soon to describe the project and recruit help for survey administration on Saturdays where I won’t be able to attend clinic.
November update: We have completed the first phase of our project which was the cardiovascular nutrition classes in Walnut Hills. The classes went super well and we got a lot of anecdotal data from the participants about their enjoyment of the course. We are still working on planning the classes for the spring. We will also be starting to assist our mentor with a needs assessment of the elderly population in the neighborhood. We will continue to go to events within the community as we are available.
During this month, I was able to get access to Redcap for the surveys that my community partner currently sends to everyone that receives home interventions. Now that I have access and the project has gotten SLAC/IRB approval, I am currently working on updating the survey form to our newer, more extensive version. I’ve also gotten in contact with Dr. Newman at the CCHMC difficult to treat asthma clinic, to try and find ways to improve their pre-existing program with PWC. We will be meeting next week to discuss the current project and talk about ways I can help, such as talking with families that may benefit from home interventions. He also has some training/resources that may be helpful with the project moving forward. Once the new survey is in place and I’ve met with Dr. Newman, I should be able to begin meeting and working directly with the families that we are serving, which I look forward to.
The group organizations I reached out to in order to recruit physicians to speak have not responded. I am wondering if there is a better way to contact group leaders or if I should search for speakers a different way or on my own. The only barrier I am experiencing right now.
Still no response from group leaders. I will recruit physicians I have personal connections with next semester to come speak at the event. Otherwise, I have recorded all data thus far and am starting to finalize my 2 reflections per month starting in Oct.
I have continued to attend the Roberts Academy monthly volunteer clinic since my last update and was able to start the health education portion at my last visit. I first administered a total of 5 pre-education surveys containing questions about appropriate food choices and portion sizes. Then I did 15 minutes of education for each family on the topics discussed in the questionnaire. Lastly, I administered a post-education survey with the same questions the patients and their families had seen at the start of the visit. The 5 families had notable improvements from their pre- to post-education survey scores. At the end of their visit I also sent them home with the relevant education materials and “fit-kit” containing fresh ingredients.
November Update: This month has been full of volunteering and attending meetings within the community. We also were able to complete the Cardiovascular Health Class which provided residents with new recipes and we were able to share a meal each week. The feedback was overall positive and members tried food they had never fathomed of making which was inspiring. We will continue to meet with the nutritionist we are working with to plan the Pregnancy Health class in the spring. We also will be doing a needs assessment in the community to help with an upcoming grant for the geriatric population.
November update is that survey collection is nearing completion. I reviewed techniques on how to mitigate bias in survey administration and I feel it is helping a lot in collecting good data and deeper feedback. About 100 have been collected with a goal of 120. I will continue through this week and into the next before beginning data analysis. The monthly board meeting is coming up next week which I am happy to attend in person (no conflicts finally!) and discuss narrative feedback I have received while administering the survey.
November Update: Currently in communication with our coordinators to establish a parent or two to host a podcast with through the UnsCripted Medicine podcast to talk about being a parent of a person with a complex disability, the unique challenges they face, and ways that St. Joseph’s Home help to address these challenges. I will use this interview to write an Op-Ed as my narrative project. I would love suggestions for some local Cincinnati newspapers/blogs/editorials that I could write to!
December has been a busy month at Green Umbrella. On December 6th, we hosted a webinar with Scioto Analysis detailing our climate change and health analysis for the Cincinnati region. We are also preparing to release our PSA campaign in January. The bulk of my time this month has been preparing these PSAs and their associated background information to share with public health departments.
December has been a productive month. I worked with the in-house social workers to finalize survey collection and exceeded the goal number of surveys. Now I am trimming/cleaning the data since there appear to be some mishaps with some crucial fields left blank however, this shouldn’t impact the sample size too drastically. The results of the survey were shared preliminarily with the organization’s board, with 92% saying they felt welcome at ODB. This was crucial because the organization’s mission is “radical hospitality.” In addition to survey work I have been volunteering serving in the soup kitchen. It has been nice to serve the same patrons that I talked to while doing the survey.
December update: We have continued volunteering in the neighborhood at food distribution events. This month has been harder for me to make volunteering sessions due to interviews, but plan to continue these. We finished our CV nutrition class with community members and the community members seemed to really enjoy the class. We will take what we learned from this class and apply it as we continue to plan our pregnancy class. We have started planning our needs assessment for elderly community members and plan to administer this to community members at a meeting in the new year.
December update: IRB edits were submitted and the project was approved. I attended several SRFC meetings and will need to plan implementing the project during the period of leadership transition in the new year. I will start creating my RedCap survey soon. No questions or concerns as of now!
This month, I worked on tidying up my PowerPoint for the trainings. We had the training surrounding stereotypes, and my training slides and activities were used. I also completed the federal background check and started volunteering within the shelter. I will be working on a lit review for the training this next month on microaggressions.
December Update:
This month has included a good amount of volunteer hours and different food distribution events around the city. Here we have been able to brainstorm with the community regarding different needs they are hoping to be met in the New Year. I also spent time meeting with and preparing for the Women in Pregnancy meetings in the Spring. I completed CITI training to be able to help with any surveys the group partakes in. In January we will meet again and start working on curriculum development regarding different medical topics in pregnancy.
Earlier in the month, I was able to meet with Dr. Newman with the CCHMC Difficult to Treat Asthma Clinic. He provided excellent resources on the impacts of home-environment on asthma patients. In addition, we came up with ideas to help improve participation in the pilot program that the clinic has started with PWC. He is working to get me appropriate badging access to go to the clinic and talk with families who may be eligible for PWC services, to directly put them into contact with the organization. Meanwhile, I have continued to improve the pre/post survey tools that PWC uses for its customers. For the next several months, I hope to help implement these tools with families whenever possible, as well as analyze the new data that we are now collecting.
January Project Updates: Please reply within this thread for this month’s updates.
I have continued to attend the Roberts Academy monthly volunteer clinic since my last update. I have collected a total of 12 pre/post-education surveys. All patients have had some improvement in their survey scores after the education. Additionally, I’ve distributed a total of 17 bags of fresh groceries. Something unexpected has been the amount of no-shows at the clinics, but on the plus side, this means that I’ve been able to give the patients that do show up double.
I made a paper version of the survey tool and worked with a certified medical Spanish interpreter to make the Spanish version of the survey. I successfully requested RedCap access and completed the training. Surveys have been printed, and I will start administering them to Healing Center guests this Saturday! The papers with anonymous survey responses will be collected and manually entered by me into the RedCap data collection tool, which is a work in progress as of right now.
This month has required a lot of waiting, as some roadblocks have been encountered. I am still working to help PWC with their pilot with CCHMC, but to be able to come to clinic and speak with patient candidates would require badge access and this has been difficult to manage. One of my main contacts for this project has also had to temporarily step away from the office. However, I am continuing to reach out to other people within CCHMC to work on badge access, as well as working on other ways to encourage patient involvement without physically being in clinic. The pre- and post-surveys have reached a good stage in development and we are now waiting for appropriate families to try them and provide feedback. I have continued to research similar projects to look for new insights or ways to improve our current surveys and semi-structured interview formats. The most exciting update for the month is a new area that I have begun researching for PWC. They are considering adding services to help with sensory processing disorders, but require information on the target populations and possible interventions for this new area.
This month had a bit of a cold start and a few of the volunteer opportunities were unfortunately cancelled due to the cold. Otherwise I was able to attend community meetings and help administer surveys to help gather insight on needs the Walnut Hills community feel are unmet regarding their health. We received about 12 responses and will continue the discussion in February. We also are getting the ball moving on research regarding the Cardiovascular and Hypertension classes for the AHA. In February we will continue meeting to create the lesson plans for the classes focusing on blood sugar and blood pressure.
January has been a quiet month for me because I have been on my acting internship. I have continued to work on the public service announcements project. In addition, I am preparing to talk at the Climate Research Incubator Symposium in early February. The public service announcement project has certainly been a lot of work, so I am excited to see our first set of posts release later this month.
February Project Updates: Please reply within this thread for this month’s updates
Working on project presentation and reflections. Still looking for medical speakers but got chess set up at one location
February Update: This month has flown by! We have been able to continue to work on the curriculum for Hypertension in Pregnancy and will finalize this during the month of March. We have been able to meet with the community multiple times with volunteering and helping create a communication system for the community to use in order to share upcoming events. We will continue to volunteer and work on our project presentation this upcoming month!
February update: I attended a total of 3 SRFC clinic days since my last update to administer surveys and to serve as a general volunteer. Now that the survey goal of 25 has been reached, I will be downloading and analyzing data shortly. I plan to present my findings at the next advisory board meeting, and will start working with team members to create appointment tools based on survey results and community partner feedback.
This month I’ve had progress in all of my current projects! PWC has identified families to test and refine the new and improved surveys that I have set up, and I am now helping administer these surveys in person to get better feedback. After some roadblocks in the CCHMC pilot, I was able to get in touch with a new coordinator in the Environmental Health and Lead Prevention Clinic and am now going to be regularly going in to the clinic to provide information and recruit eligible families for the pilot program. Finally, I have been doing a lot of research on sensory processing disorders, which is an area I knew very little about. I am compiling this information and it will hopefully be used for a future LC project to help set up PWC services in this new area.
Sorry for my late reply. I did less in February because I was working in New Mexico for the Indian Health Service. During this month, I gave a talk on the health impacts of climate change for a symposium hosted by Green Umbrella. In addition, we had our first community presentation on the Mental Health impacts of climate change. The presentation went great and had 20-30 people in attendance. This is the link to our blog post which I wrote: https://greenumbrella.org/its-not-just-you-the-impacts-of-climate-change-on-mental-health/
February update: I met with the executive board of Our Daily Bread and started brainstorming tangible next steps in response to feedback from the survey. I will resume volunteering in March now that I am done with rotations!
I have been able to complete over half of my interviews at Saint Joseph Home. I have three more planned to complete + at this point am also going to reach out to staff
Not much to report on for January. Getting the kids restarted after Christmas break. Helped with the first week of a new location but headed back to Winton
This month, I completed a lit review for the microaggressions training. I covered the health impacts of microaggressions, including the effects on mistrust of the health care system as well as the impacts of stress on physical/mental health. I also covered research backed ways of bringing microaggressions out in the open and other ways to dismantle them. I am looking forward to hopefully volunteering more in the coming months as well as working more on the social media side of things. I hope to create posts relating to domestic violence policy to explain it in a way that every one can understand. I also look forward to working on the surveys to add multiple choice questions to them for further trainings.
In the Month of January I organized diapers and supplies, started organizing a social event for students and their families, created surveys for the students and invited students to share their stories balancing parenthood and college scholarship.
During February I’ve been coordinating interviews with BCP leadership to the get the stories of students and staff receiving assistance with the Family First program. I’m excited to understand more about their experiences and how to best support them.
January Update: I finished analyzing the data and creating a powerpoint presentation containing the survey results and narrative feedback for ODB. This information will be presented at the February board meeting.
February Update: After being away for a few months with busy rotations, we are back at our normal volunteering events including food distribution on Tuesdays and Fridays. Colleen and I are beginning to work more heavily on the curriculum for the pregnancy nutrition class. We are also assisting Dr. Goroncy with a grant she is writing for the neighborhood and helping our community partners with streamlining communication with community members about the food distribution events.
Recently, I have continued working on my health department training materials. Most recently I added materials to the racial trauma lecture and attending the training with the health department. At the training, we discussed the homework from last training where we practiced dismantling mocroaggressions with a framework I gave everyone. In the racial trauma lecture, I brought insight into local medical atrocities as well as other historical racial injustices in medicine. I also discussed current research completed at UC regarding underrepresented miniority patient preferences for a same race provider. I also discussed environmental racism and its health impacts, including the recent East Palestine derailment. I’m the past, I have created some social media posts for YWCA (attached), and I hope to continue this next month regarding policy surrounding domestic violence. I also hope to volunteer with the domestic violence shelters more!
March Project Updates: Please post within this thread for this month’s updates. Thanks!
March Update: This month has been exciting meeting with our community partners and helping wrapping up our project as well as proposing directions for the future. We have been able to volunteer and meet with our different community partners to continue food distribution. We are continuing to work on curriculum development which will continue through April for the Pregnancy and Hypertension. We helped Dr. Goroncy perform a needs assessment that focused on improving communication. We helped the partners collect phone numbers and create a mass-text system to help improve that communication. We will plan to share this with the remainder of the community at the next community meeting!
This has been a quieter month working with my community partner. We have another PSA meeting scheduled later this month. In addition, I have been creating educational modules for our community partners to utilize that cover climate change and health in Cincinnati. I will be giving a 1-hour presentation on that topic on April 2nd.
We finished our final training with the health department this past week. This topic was co-conspiratorship, how to move past being an ally and really take action against oppression and racism despite the consequences. The training was mainly small group discussions on ways that we have been complicit and how we can intervene in the future. For a health perspective, I provided information on ways that the health department could intervene at a systemic level, looking at the CDCs current framework as well as other health governing bodies. I am also volunteering more at the domestic violence shelter, organizing and inventorying their donation closet. Next steps include analyzing the survey data, forming the final presentation, and having input on the trauma informed care presentation.
I have a physician and resident coming to speak at SH this coming Saturday! Working on putting my powerpoint presentation and reflections together.
I have completed 7 of my interviews, with two more by the end of the week. The narrative information has been extremely valuable to my perception of caregivers of people with complex disabilities. I will now be compiling/coding responses to be shared for students. By the end of April I will submit a narrative article to either OAFP or IDD journal for approval. I also plan to record a podcast on UnsCripted Medicine for future medical students to get to know SJH and challenges that people with complex disabilities and their families face!
The one thing that I have been trying to decipher personally has been how to construct a narrative piece from my interviews. I am curious if anyone thinks it would be best to write an essay that goes over each question I asked or to write more of a story that targets reader’s emotions about the struggles that caregivers face. Thanks!
March Update: I have been volunteering frequently and have had the opportunity to get to know different board members who regularly volunteer. It has been nice to meld with the community of volunteers in this way. It has also been nice to hear about follow-ups from the data from the survey. I continue to work on my final presentation.
March Update: I presented my survey findings to the SRFC and Healing Center leadership! The results led to an interesting discussion about next steps. I’ve engaged key members of SRFC to discuss and revise the proposed appointment resources/materials, and we plan to meet soon. Looking forward to presenting and learning about everyone’s projects next week!
March was a very big month for my project, especially for the CAFE pilot with CCHMC. The biggest breakthrough was finally getting all badge and epic access approved through Children’s, so that I have been able to go in to both the environmental health and lead clinic, as well as the pulmonary clinic. These are the clinics that are key to the pilot program, but due to staff turnover and other factors, most of the providers in these clinics either did not understand the program or were totally unaware it existed. I have worked with the social worker in the pulmonary clinic to understand the eligibility for this program and the consent process, and I have worked with a few of the attendings and fellows to screen their patients. I have also walked through the next steps in the process with the nurses at the EHLC. The major roadblocks for recruiting patients should be removed now and theoretically the process should function without my involvement. However, I am going to continue to work with the clinics through April to try and meet our minimum number of recruited patients. Otherwise, my research on sensory processing disorders is going very well, and I am mainly working on organizing my findings into a document that will be easy to understand for my partners at PWC and any future LC groups that may do related projects.
March update: Colleen and I have been getting back in the neighborhood more frequently for twice-weekly food distribution events. We also assisted one of our community partners with creating a way to communicate with all the community members when necessary for food distribution events. We started creating a way to mass-text community members with updated. We are also continuing to work on the curriculum in full force for the HTN and pregnancy course that we are assisting with.