LHSI

LHSI Predictions

I believe that I will be successful with my internship. I will make connections with the team and be able to communicate e in a professional way. I also believe that I will learn more about Type 1 Diabetes and research process. This experience will help with determining if I want to do specialize in pediatrics in dentistry. I am concerned about the limitations due to the pandemic. I believe it will be a challenge to meet patients and to recruit patients during this time.  I am ready to begin working and I am interested in the development of my project.

LHSI Goals

I will watch the nurses and researchers as they talk to patients. Then I will discuss their approach and ask for tips after the conversations.


I will be interactive with the staff and do research. I can use my own time to read about diabetes and treatments.


I will focus on asking question and take notes on what is presented to me. Then I will choose a concern or topic to focus on for my project. Staying connected with my supervisors and the team will assure I have the right information and it is demonstrated well.

Internship Goals

This internship will help build on my skills and strengths. I will learn how to communicate and approach different people. I will learn how to problem solve in different situations, and properly do research. I will create professional connections and networking is very important.

Before the year ends, I would like to contact potential patients to be a part of the pathway to prevention study. My project will based around how to get people involved in research by the different ways to contact them. What is the most effective communication? This will help my internship to be able to get more people involved by determining the best method to reach out.

Why I chose LHSI?

I chose to apply and participate in Life-Health Sciences Internship Program because I wanted to have a different experience. I am a transfer student and in my freshman year I had to learn a lot about IUPUI and what they had to offer. When I came across and e-mail from LHSI, I was very intrigued especially by the research opportunity I was matched with. I have heard about Type 1 and 2 diabetes, but my family has been affected by both. I did not know the significance of Type 1 Diabetes, and wanted to learn more about it. I want to learn about the different types, diagnosis, and treatments. I thought about being a pediatric dentist, so this will help me decide if that is the path I want to go down. Also, I have a few family members that have diabetes.  Although Type 1 Diabetes is very different from Dentistry, I will try to make connections between the two different fields.


Expectations vs. Reality

I expected there to be more work for me to do. I believed that I would just be behind a desk all day. I did not expect my internship site to be as impactful as it was. It was completely different from that. I was able to interact with the team a lot as well as go on patient visits. I got to meet Dr. Linda DiMeglio in person and go on visits with her. I did not think I was going  to  be able to due to the pandemic and the fact that she has is she a part of the pediatric endocrinology and diabetology department at Riley Hospital. I was also introduced to many of Dr. DiMeglio's colleagues.  I knew that I would be doing my internship during the school year , so I believed that it  would be a struggle to manage this school year. Being a Biology B.S major and minoring in Chemistry, an intern, working a part time job, giving back to the community, and spending time with my family and friends was difficult this year. My internship site was understanding and always offered to help me throughout the year. I enjoyed my internship more than what I expected, but the team made the experience even better.


LHSI Elevator Pitch Visual

Riley Children's Hospital-Research Center 

Pediatric Diabetes and Endocrinology

This research team is focused on preventing Type 1 Diabetes, reversing disease progression, and improving patient quality of life. I will be shadowing  Dr. DiMeglio as well as research coordinators, nurses, and other staff in a clinical setting to gain a better understanding of the process. My responsibilities will be patient study, recruiting patients, and entering data after patient visits. I will be able to choose a topic to do more research on and create a project on it. This experience will allow myself to strengthen my professional mannerism and how to communicate in a professional setting.

Fall Reflection

I enjoy being an intern. There is something different to do everyday. I enjoy going on patient visits and working with the different faculty members. I also learned more about type 1 diabetes and the different treatments. My favorite experience about being an intern is getting to know the team. I feel like I have made a real connections with the team members. Being an intern during a pandemic is not ideal, but I do have more time to have discussions with different team members about their experiences in life and how they got into research. I am hopeful that there will be more patients to see in the spring!

I have really enjoyed patient visits and recruiting people to join different research opportunities my site offers. I have also enjoyed meeting all the team members and learning more about their specific role. Learning about the different ways to manage diabetes and how it has transformed over the years was inciteful. When I went to clinic with Dr. Linda DiMeglio, I learned more about different bone diseases. I watched how she made a connection with each patient. As I talked more with her, I learned that a lot of her patients she has been knowing for years. For the new patients, Dr. DiMeglio made sure she checked the patients background. When she met new patients she treated them the same and interacted with them to build a relationship.

At my site, there are a lot of meetings. Meetings consist of quick updates and statuses, new research projects, and informative seminars. I have seen them all be very interactive in meetings. Everyone pitches in and contributes to the conservation. Also whenever there is a change in protocol or anything else changes, the team is always on top of it and makes sure everyone is updated. I have seen the team triple check their work and ask for feedback from other team members.

https://www.trialnet.org/our-research

https://www.rileychildrens.org/departments/diabetes-endocrinology

Spring Reflection

I feel like my contribution in recruiting people made a difference. I have helped multiple people get the information they need about to get tested for Type 1 Diabetes. I have stressed the importance of how common the disease is amongst family members and that a person is 15 times more likely to develop the disease if they have a relative with it. I have helped my site recruit new patients for research and determining which form of communication is the most effective


Successes and Challenges:

I have been most successful at recruiting new patients as an intern. I also feel that I have done well with interacting with patients on visits. For example, I make phone calls to parents to see if they have any eligible family members to participate in our research. I explain to them what the pathway to prevention study is and what they have to do. Then I offer them the option to contact further about that specific research opportunity or other research opportunities we have.

The most challenging part of my internship is recruiting new patients. Because of the pandemic, I can not interact the way I want to. I would be out in the city displaying my internship and talking to different people. I would definitely be on campus trying to recruit students and staff. The biggest problem is not being able to talk to people and having such a short amount of people to reach out to. As of right now, I am recruiting family members of people who have been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. That decreases the amount of people I could talk to. For example, I have 80 children that have been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. For my recruitment, I contact the children's parents to see if they have any relatives that are eligible to participate in the research.

I have developed better communications skills. I have gotten more comfortable with talking to strangers and asking them to do something. My communication with my team has also improved.

I did not realize how much paperwork goes into research and professional careers in general. Everything has to be documented especially consent.


https://www.rileychildrens.org/departments/diabetes-endocrinology



Below is my presentation with audio!

LHSI Project Summary


Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disease. Pancreatic beta cells are destroyed and insulin which regulates the body's glucose metabolism are dangerously low. There are five autoantibodies associated with type one diabetes. A person with two or more will develop T1D at some point in their lifetime because The autoantibodies have already started attacking the pancreatic beta cells that create insulin. 

The Type 1 Diabetes Trialnet Pathway to Prevention ( www.trialnet.org ) is an international research study. It allows family members of persons with T1D to get their blood tested for autoantibodies associated with T1D. If someone has a relative with T1D, they are 15 times more likely to develop the disease compared to the general population. Pathway to Prevention is risk screening that will detect the early stages of T1D if antibodies are detected. The goal of this project is to find which method of contact engages the most new participants for Pathway to Prevention. I am contacting families of children recently diagnosed with T1D through phone calls, emails, letters or postcards and to compare the number of consented participants based on which contact method was used. I plan to determine which contact method is the most effective to recruit new participants.

  


LHSI-Project2.pdf.pptx