(no subject)
The Minor Leagues1,2
I'm coming off of a 14 hour shift in the emergency room; half a day of enrolling patients in trials, HIV counseling and being on my feet. There's a faint line on the back of my lab coat that wasn't there this morning, the off-white bisected by a brown streak of dirt and sweat. My handlers are still ambivalent on how to properly train me: half want me to go through a structured, three week program in which I learn all of the clinical studies we're running and shadow more experienced researchers until I get the hang of things. The other half want me to, in their words, "jump in headfirst" and direct my own progress. Lately the second group has been winning out on my treatment, and I'm slowly understanding that I learn more quickly when I have minimal hand-holding. So far it's been a rough beginning but I know I've got a long way to go.
I thought that interviewing would be easy - or at least easier than the first year of medical coursework. The truth is that it's not so much difficult as it is different; studying cofactors for ten hours each day requires a completely divergent skillset than is required to properly diagnose an illness or tell someone that they're now paralyzed from the waist down. There's also a huge difference between watching a physician convince a patient to join a trial and trying to do it yourself. The first time I tried to get consent from someone to enroll in our HIV study I failed spectacularly:
"Hello. I'm, um, a researcher in the, uh, ED and westudyHIVrisksandprevention and, um, isitokayifIaskyousomequestions?"
You could have heard a cricket fart in the room after I finished that sentence, it was so quiet.
***
On my first day I got an almost 80% refusal rate. It did wonders for my ego.
The truth: I wish I could do this almost every day.
1: Put your headphones on and crank up the volume before you hit |>
2: Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo are, right now, my favorite contemporary hip-hop production team. This beat is solid.
I'm coming off of a 14 hour shift in the emergency room; half a day of enrolling patients in trials, HIV counseling and being on my feet. There's a faint line on the back of my lab coat that wasn't there this morning, the off-white bisected by a brown streak of dirt and sweat. My handlers are still ambivalent on how to properly train me: half want me to go through a structured, three week program in which I learn all of the clinical studies we're running and shadow more experienced researchers until I get the hang of things. The other half want me to, in their words, "jump in headfirst" and direct my own progress. Lately the second group has been winning out on my treatment, and I'm slowly understanding that I learn more quickly when I have minimal hand-holding. So far it's been a rough beginning but I know I've got a long way to go.
I thought that interviewing would be easy - or at least easier than the first year of medical coursework. The truth is that it's not so much difficult as it is different; studying cofactors for ten hours each day requires a completely divergent skillset than is required to properly diagnose an illness or tell someone that they're now paralyzed from the waist down. There's also a huge difference between watching a physician convince a patient to join a trial and trying to do it yourself. The first time I tried to get consent from someone to enroll in our HIV study I failed spectacularly:
"Hello. I'm, um, a researcher in the, uh, ED and westudyHIVrisksandprevention and, um, isitokayifIaskyousomequestions?"
You could have heard a cricket fart in the room after I finished that sentence, it was so quiet.
***
On my first day I got an almost 80% refusal rate. It did wonders for my ego.
The truth: I wish I could do this almost every day.
1: Put your headphones on and crank up the volume before you hit |>
2: Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo are, right now, my favorite contemporary hip-hop production team. This beat is solid.