Foot In the Door
This experience-- by far the longest I have partaken in, for honors and my college career-- has been a culmination of three years of work. The summer after my high school graduation, through Dr. Cindy Bacchurski's High School Senior Summer Internship, I began my first foray into clinical research. I shadowed my mentor Dr. Mary Allen Staat in the multiple departments she works in, as well as contributing to two long term studies she had been working on.
The New Vaccine Surveillance Network (NVSN) includes study sites that focus on population-based surveillance and data collection on the use and impact of vaccines and the impact of vaccine policies. NVSN sites conduct studies relevant to vaccines and vaccine recommendations. Study topics include rotavirus and influenza vaccine effectiveness, the cost-benefit of vaccine programs, coverage of new childhood vaccines, and feasibility studies of new vaccine implementation recommendations. NVSN sites are supported by a cooperative agreement with CDC. |
Viral disease experts at CDC are partnering with doctors at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center for the PREVAIL cohort study. This is the first multi-year CDC study in the United States that looks at how a mother’s immune system may help protect her children from illnesses caused by these viruses. PREVAIL is a three-year study involving women and their infants. The information gathered from this study will greatly improve our understanding of how viral infections impact a child’s immune system during the first 2 years of life. Doctors and scientists can use this information for developing new vaccines and improving those we have to help protect children from getting sick and dying. |
IMPRINT
There’s a theory that the very first exposure you have imprints your immune system, which then affects your response to the next exposure |
Cincinnati Children’s PREVAIL Cohort team led by Mary Allen Staat, MD, MPH, and Ardythe Morrow, PhD, MSc, has been awarded a $31 million grant from NIH to conduct a new flu study called Influenza IMPRINT Cohort, which will look at immune responses to flu in babies. Researchers hope that finding the answer to that question will help them create a more effective universal flu vaccine.
Reflection
The most clear and profound impact this experience had was that it was my first real, long term employment. Prior to being hired after graduating high school, I had only worked very short, temporary jobs like tutoring or being a camp counselor. This meant that for the first time, I was learning the soft skills that are necessary for anyone to work effectively as a team, and logistical things that are a part of truly working for a large company. These are tasks that most working adults know and loathe, like being on the phone with IT for an hour because suddenly your extranet decided to stop working, or figuring out which times of day the cafeteria is less crowded and what rooms are usually already booked for the other department’s weekly meeting. But it was all new and unfamiliar to me, and I had to learn to just jump the shark and not worry about being perfect or messing things up. I also had to learn how to become a better communicator-- not in the sense of improving my writing or speaking skills, but making sure I knew who to reach out to when faced with a problem and when exactly I need to be keeping my supervisors in the loop about an issue. I had been met with gentle reprimand by my supervisor on a few instances because I forgot to tell her about an issue I’d been having, under the assumption that it was my responsibility- and mine alone- to fix it. All of these things aren’t taught in a class (at least, not the classes I’ve been taking) but are equally important as education, if not more so, in ensuring an individual's success within their career. More than anything, I know how important it is to have trust, reliability, and honesty with the people you work with because everyone is responsible for getting the job done. This is particularly important in healthcare settings because the care of real human beings are directly involved in our decisions.
I have learned that I may be done with working in research for quite some time-- it is something I see incredible value in, but my skills are better suited elsewhere. To be a researcher is to learn to comb through perfectly ordinary information with a fine tooth, and run that comb along thousands of pages for years, trying to make sense of everything in a way that doesn’t have pre-existing examples or explanations. I now have dear friends whose post-grad plans include pursuing their PhD, and the passion and fervor they hold for their work is something I deeply admire but don’t quite share myself. Understanding the backbone of clinical research and how it shapes law and regulations in the hospital is essential to being a healthcare provider in a shifting landscape. The incredible team of researchers I had the pleasure of learning from these few years have greatly shaped my understanding of medicine, healthcare, and being a real adult human thing balancing work, family, life, and everything else. I can’t wait for the opportunity one day in the future to be working with them again in a completely different capacity.
I have learned that I may be done with working in research for quite some time-- it is something I see incredible value in, but my skills are better suited elsewhere. To be a researcher is to learn to comb through perfectly ordinary information with a fine tooth, and run that comb along thousands of pages for years, trying to make sense of everything in a way that doesn’t have pre-existing examples or explanations. I now have dear friends whose post-grad plans include pursuing their PhD, and the passion and fervor they hold for their work is something I deeply admire but don’t quite share myself. Understanding the backbone of clinical research and how it shapes law and regulations in the hospital is essential to being a healthcare provider in a shifting landscape. The incredible team of researchers I had the pleasure of learning from these few years have greatly shaped my understanding of medicine, healthcare, and being a real adult human thing balancing work, family, life, and everything else. I can’t wait for the opportunity one day in the future to be working with them again in a completely different capacity.