moving forward:
1) Quality of Life paper (evaluating the validity and reliability of two QOL questionnaires, the MOS-HIV and SF-12 in Thailand)
Dr. S returned from the US and met with me to talk about some of the new stats that Dr. A wanted in the paper. He also talked to me about the order of authorship and i was a little let down because he told me i would be second-to-last even though i essentially wrote the entire paper. After consulting with some friends, i have decided that when i send the final draft out (hopefully this weekend) i will ask him if it's possible to be second author.
Although i know authorship is pretty political, i think it's nice to be able to support students. i was really hoping to have a publication in a peer-reviewed journal before residency apps, and one of the other people on the paper is also keen on having me achieve that goal. i hope i remember what it's like to be a student when im an attending writing papers somewhere and give authorship to up-and-coming peoples over those who already have a ton of papers anyway.
Anyway, besides the authorship thing, the paper is pretty close to (my) final draft, so once it gets approved by the two main people on the paper, it will be off!
1a. Quality of life trial
The other trial that Dr. S is working on right now that i discussed in an earlier post (700+ pts started on ARV about three years ago, tons of data on EVERYTHING - quality of life, adherence, risk behavior, SES, etc.) is coming up on three years, where they're going to administer a battery of questionnaires again. The issue of lipodystrophy/lipoatrophy came up at a previous dissemination meeting with all the hospitals and Dr. A gave us some tools to look at from NIAID. Dr. P translated them into Thai and we pilot tested them last week in the HIV OPD clinic, which was fun (and interesting). Kinda reminded me of HIV-NAT days, when i helped Dr. Mark administer LD questionnaires.
After i finish the QOL paper on the validity and reliability of the two QOL questionnaires, Dr. S invited me to work on another paper (discussing improving SES, or socio-economic status, with starting HAART) with him. i also might help do some writing for the big (main results) paper that Dr. A is working on.
2) Reproductive health questionnaire
i finally got to have a meeting with the head doc and some of the nurses about incorporating a better intake/questionnaire form when women come to electively terminate pregnancies. they helped make corrections/clarify stuff on the form i wrote and agreed to administer the questionnaire and keep it separate from the identifier information. hopefully this is implemented soon (waiting for bureaucratic approval) and data can be collected! im kinda proud for pushing this point because i think it will really help with health services at the clinic and won't just be for me (and my research). i will finalize my CHR (Committee for Human Research) forms and hopefully qualify for a JHU exemption. ill likely have to return to CM sometime in the fall to collect (paper) data as well.
3) Thailand, TRIPS, and Compulsory Licensing : a lunchtime lecture by yours truly!the clinical trial coordinators for each clinical trial meet once a month here to talk about clinical trial issues, collaborate, and sometimes learn about research/ethics/etc. the lunch is hosted by the regulatory affairs unit where my good friend lara works. with all the crazy stuff surrounding the compulsory licenses in Thailand, she was getting approached by lots of staff asking for more info about it. since she didnt know tons of background about TRIPS, etc, she invited me to be a guest lecturer at their monthly meeting yesterday.
i threw together some slides that i had from previous presentations and then combed through emails, read through the Thai MOPH (Ministry of Public Health) white paper that they wrote on the topic of their three recent compulsory licenses, and utilized the CP-TECH/KEI information available to me (yay Thiru!). lara gave me a super nice introduction and mentioned the time i had spent at the WHO. im actually really happy i participated in the Global Health Fellows Program now (even though it was a little crazy at the time, and i didn't finish my paper....maybe it will actually get done if my APHA abstract is accepted, esp. since SO much has happened in thailand since that time). i also made great friends in geneve - y'all know who you are.
before i went to give my presentation, liz noted (over AIM) that she thought i was never nervous. i think i get a little nervous before some kind of public speaking appearance (does anyone remember the first time they presented in the VA ICU - i do, and it was my first medicine patient of M3 year), but feel pretty comfortable speaking in front of a crowd, probably because ive done it a bunch of times. liz said i never seemed nervous even if i was. i hope this continues when i get back on the wards. :) back to the talk:
i was a little nervous that some of the staff (all Thai except Lara) wouldn't understand since i was presenting in English but tried to speak slowly throughout and staff seemed really into it. a few people were super engaged and asked me a lot of questions once it was over (and i think the people in the back were interested as well, but were trying to translate among themselves). lara said it was a big hit because no one got up and left even after she was like, 'ok, thanks for coming, it's over' and hung around to talk about it.
4) More quality of life (and other stuff) at Chiang Mai University
hopefully ill set up a meeting with one the head ARV clinic nurse today, who wrote this crazy long report in Thai about some research she did among ARV naive pts who started to take HAART on the NAPHA (the national HIV/AIDS treatment program here which offers universal access to those meeting treatment criteria). poo (ID fellow) gave me the report a few weeks ago and noted that Dr. Kuanchai thought something might be able to published from it. ive read through a lot of the report (all in Thai) and approached the author last week at clinic. i only got to talk to her briefly about whether she ever thought about writing anything in English/publishing in either Thai or international journals, and she said no. (she does all this research, writes it up and binds it, and then just puts it in the medical/nursing library. CRAZY!!) i think there's actually a lot of interesting data in her report and am going to see if she's interested in working together to put an abstract or paper together - hopefully this will get her involved and interested in disseminating her work/experience to others both here and abroad.
ok, play update later. gotta get ready for clinic!
PS Happy Happy Birthday to my husband, Chris!!
PPS Welcome to Thailand, Libby Houle!
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