rivka | (no subject)

Mother Nature let me down.

Only a couple of inches of snow fell last night, leaving me no way to escape today's major challenge: writing a Data and Safety Monitoring Plan for the grant we submitted in October.

I've never written one of these before. The instructions and requirements are, shall we say, opaque - particularly in terms of how they might apply to a psychological intervention. Most of the preparation materials out there talk about procedures for handling adverse drug reactions and unexplained study deaths. I don't think we'll be having any of those.

And I woke up this morning with a headache.

At the other end of the day, things look more promising.

curiousangel and I have tickets to see Ain't Misbehavin', and we're going to have sushi beforehand.

Six o'clock sure is a long time from now.

Update: God bless NIDA. They've posted sample DSMPs for prevention interventions and non-medication behavioral interventions. I can basically crib from these, and my boss will think I'm a genius.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

If you have the time, I will spirit you away to the Ambassador Dining Room for an hour or so of civilized comfort later today. Perhaps by then you'll have made significant progress with the Plan.

Do they have samples they could give you? Like code, I always find writing documents easier if I know what it's supposed to look like.

There are plenty of samples, but they're mostly for clinical trials of medications or medical procedures. What's utterly blocked me up until now is trying to translate them in my head into terms and systems more appropriate for psychological research. But! I just found a set of sample MDSPs for behavioral interventions. All hail Google!

I'm convinced that a good half of looking like a genius is knowing where to find information other people have already done for you.

Yep. All hail Google!

Hey, sounds more like research than cribbing. Good thing to have a model to work from. Go, you!

(But are you king yet?)