Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) Blog
Collaboration for Academic Primary Care (APEx) Blog
Posted by jchoules
19 July 2018The Health Services & Policy Research Group hosted two summer interns from the BMedSci programme again this year. They actively contributed to ongoing work and were valued highly within the team. They have both since reported that:
“My 4-week placement with the Health Services & Policy Research Group has been invaluable, exposing me to research and providing a plethora of opportunities to gain crucial techniques and skills that will carry forward not only throughout my undergraduate studies but also to take into the world beyond BSc Medical Sciences. Through working on a scoping review into healthcare system performance for patients with multimorbidity I learned the key differences between scoping reviews systematic reviews, learnt how to perform complex searches in databases, which had previously intimidated me during my undergraduate studies, and helped to screen at text-level, learning the useful ability to read things quickly but thoroughly! I felt incredibly welcomed amongst the team; rather than feeling like a work experience student making tea, I felt fully part of the group, attending meetings and lectures, and learnt a lot by being thrown in at the deep end. I am delighted I have had this wonderful opportunity, gained a wide range of experience, and met brilliant people, and I’d like to thank everyone who made it so great.”
“Being part of a research team focusing on Patient Reported Outcome Measures (PROMs) is a great opportunity for me as a first year medical sciences student. Learning about the diseases in lectures is one thing, but hearing it from a patient’s perspective as to how it affects them is another. The purpose of the study I was part of was to see how chronobiology played a role in the symptoms of the people suffering from multimorbidity. This was specifically narrowed down to people suffering from a combination of asthma, osteoarthritis or depression. Through this, GPs may have a better understanding on how different people express symptoms over the day or year and possibly advise them on when would be a better time for them to take the medication. Based on the results of the questionnaires and the interviews, there are slight variations of symptoms being experienced over the day and seasons. For example, people with osteoarthritis tend to have more pain towards the evenings and people with asthma tend to have a flare up of symptoms when the pollen count is high during the summer. This has also provided a good insight for patients as some may have not noticed a variation in their symptoms before and from this they might be able to better manage their conditions.
It has been pleasurable working with a research team who have been very welcoming to me since my first day which made my experience here even more beneficial. During my placement, I have learned how to input quantitative data into a statistics program called Stata. I have some understanding as to how bids are placed and the process behind it. My time in this placement has definitely sparked my interest in pursuing a career in this field of research.”
UEMS BMedSci students