During the summer of 2021, I had the opportunity to engage in Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation within the Pediatric Oncology Student Training grant program. I worked alongside Dr. Jen Poynter and an invaluable research team within the University of Minnesota’s Division of Pediatric Epidemiology and Clinical Research; both of which provided supervision and guidance during the entirety of my project.

Throughout the process, I was constantly exposed to materials, methods, and aspects central to the field of epidemiology. I worked with the data collection team to consent study participants and collect questionnaire data as part of my established involvement with the research team. I also retrieved and abstracted medical records, giving me an insight into health care management as I observed how medical teams work together to provide quality care for patients. Additionally, I was able to gain an appreciation as to how data can be drawn out of medical records for use in epidemiological studies such as ours. I was also able to work with the study audiologist to develop a data collection instrument in REDCap, a research database, for accurately capturing information from audiograms. This process helped me develop skills for identifying important variables within a dataset and understanding how to develop tools to translate the information into a format that can be clearly analyzed.

Previously, my work with the group has focused on existing projects, which provided me the training and background knowledge to take on a new project this summer. As the person in charge of this new project, I had to familiarize myself with every stage of developing an epidemiological study of childhood cancer. I developed and conducted a pilot study to determine the feasibility of measuring current hearing in study participants using an app-based hearing test that can be mailed to study participants to complete in their homes. The process of developing a protocol for this study was the most fruitful exposure to best practices for epidemiologic studies, as I had to consider every stage of data collection and management. I used an existing study as the basis for my procedures, adapting it to our project aims. The protocol was submitted and approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB), which was a process I had been exposed to but was never directly involved in. I now feel that I am equipped with the practical research skills required to develop a complete and reproducible study protocol. In fact, I have been able to effectively train members of our research team to conduct data collection following my procedure. Overall, I developed many practical research skills and experienced real-time investigation which I will continue to be a part of going forward.

At this point in the research project, the study team and I are following the protocol and IRB approved documents that I developed this summer. We have expanded from the initial study materials kit that I used to launch the pilot study to an additional 10 kits which are being sent nationwide to collect hearing data from our study participants. Having collected over 75 data points, I am currently drafting a manuscript for a methods paper in order to share the specifics of the protocol within the scientific community. This will be a valuable contribution to the field, as other studies can use the novel methods that we developed to reach their own project goals, and the data will also be used for another upcoming grant application. We are hoping to continue the project until we are able to reach all of our study participants. Our group will use the data to conduct various data analyses investigating risks for and effects of ototoxicity in our patient population. I am undertaking a preliminary analysis with hearing loss data that we have from questionnaire data, and am continuing to work on data collection for the pilot study and other research tasks within the group.

A major benefit of being a POST grant recipient was that I was able to dedicate myself full time to pediatric oncology research this summer. I learned about the many stages that go into developing a study including working with participants, utilizing methods that improve participation, and developing tools for data collection all while considering HIPAA compliance. The multidimensional requirement that goes into developing a new study was unexpected but forced me to get out of my comfort zone and work collaboratively with many other researchers. I was unexpectedly put in charge of a lot of responsibilities, but it was a challenge that I was open to and that pushed me to grow as an undergraduate researcher. Another aspect that I didn’t expect were the pauses in furthering our study while waiting for other parties, such as the IRB and study participants. My supervisors identified other side projects that I was able to work on in the meantime which still felt relevant to the overarching goal of being exposed to pediatric oncology research. Time management, effective communication and teamwork were all necessities to the project’s success.

U of M. (2019, September 25). Division of Pediatric Epidemiology & Clinical Research. Medical School - University of Minnesota. Retrieved March 23, 2022, from https://med.umn.edu/pediatrics/divisions/epidemiology

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University of Minnesota. UofM. (n.d.). Retrieved March 23, 2022, from: https://med.umn.edu/pediatrics/divisions/epidemiology/research/gametes