Before internships started I did research on Huntingtons so that I could better understand everything when I started. Later I had an zoom meeting with mentors to learn about the center and make a plan for my time there. The first week of internship I met everyone and was showed around. The other interns and I were given a mini lesson on HD. 

This week I added new patients and some basic information about them to the data bases. I was also able to watch a new patient go through their first appointment. It was very interesting to watch and learn from my mentors. They knew what questions to ask for specific people and were able to easily pick up on silent cues.  Later this week they had me work more on the data bases. I organized different symptoms experienced by the patients into specific categories. 

This week I shadowed more patients. Unlike last time these patients weren't new. They had been with the center for a while and had participated in clinical trials and studies. The patients were AR+ which means that they are at risk of Huntingtons and tested positive for the gene. Other patients are AR- meaning they are at risk but tested negative for the Huntington's gene. They were also post-manifest meaning they are showing symptoms and are clinically diagnosable. Others are pre-manifest, meaning they have not shown symptoms, and although they are AR+ they don’t technically have Huntingtons. 

This week I continued working on the data bases. I looked at the social support questionnaires and inputted them all. I also created equations to get all the answers on the same scale. The questions were on a 1 through 4 scale. 1 being strongly disagree, 2 being disagree, 3 being agree, and 4 being strongly agree. Some of the questions were phrased in a positive way where we wanted the patients to answer with 4, and others were phrased negatively where we wanted the patients to answer with a 1. I made the equations so that they were all on the same scale and it was easy to notice any outliers. 

This week I officially started working on my project. My mentor let me look through the questions that they ask each patient and chose ones I wanted to focus on. I chose to look at years of education and reason for getting tested. I then came up with what I thought the results would be. This week I will be focusing on inputting the data from each patient. 

Later this week I talked with my mentor to decide how I want to represent the data I found and what I want it to show. I think that I will make a graph showing the relationship between age and reason for getting tested. That way I can show the priorities of each age group and help to determine the necessary resources. For example I think that most patients in their 20’s and 30’s will worry about having kids in the future and passing down the gene. If that's correct it lets the center know that having resources for IVF, sperm/egg donors, and adoption would be helpful.