Notes from the research world.
Sep. 22nd, 2005 09:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaI'm writing this from a conference room at NIH (Hi ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
minnaleigh! Even at lunchtime they didn't let us escape, or I would've given you a call), although I won't be able to post it until sometime tonight.
It's been a crazy couple of days. I spent Tuesday afternoon and evening and all day yesterday putting together a poster display of our big NIH study (rationale, methods, preliminary results, ultra-pre-preliminary discussion), and a five-minute slide presentation for Lydia to give this afternoon. Yes, five minutes. She's limited to four slides, so she had me divide each slide into quadrants which zoom in and out at the click of a mouse, in effect giving her sixteen slides to present in five minutes. This should be fun to watch.
The mad slide-and-poster-writing rush was the same thing I always go through right before Lydia presents somewhere, except that this time Alex was with me during most of my work. (Wednesdays are a work-at-home day.) She was remarkably good, really, about being asked to share my attention with Powerpoint. But by the end of the day yesterday I was exhausted, and we still had to pack up and drive to Bethesda.
"We," in this case, meant Michael, Alex, and me. I don't travel with Lydia if I can help it, and given that by Wednesday afternoon she was still unsure about who would be watching her son overnight, this trip would've been a particularly bad time to break that rule. Michael didn't really want to spend 24 hours alone at home with Alex (go figure), so the two of them came along to luxuriate with me on my government per diem.
I thinkminnaleigh's talked about the security at NIH before, but I didn't really anticipate how much there would be. A security officer came to our hotel to examine our government IDs and issue each of us a one-day visitor pass pre-printed with our names. On the way onto campus, the official NIH shuttle that had been sent for us was stopped for a session with a bomb-sniffing dog. (Lovely animal. Weimaraner, I think. At first I was surprised that it wasn't a German shepherd or something, and then I realized that of course it would make sense for it to be a scent hound.) The same security officer is sticking close to us. The one Sikh attending our meeting isn't being singled out at all, I am relieved to see.
Right now I think Michael is at the Air and Space Museum, indoctrinating the baby. I'm multi-tasking: listening to presentations by other researchers funded under the Mind-Body Research program that supports our work; briefing Lydia on the finer distinctions of using Powerpoint; writing abstracts to submit for presentation at the Society of Behavioral Medicine, which meets in San Francisco in March; exercising the self-restraint to keep away from the large tray of cookies and brownies just eight feet from my chair; longing for a nap; and, of course, posting in a time-delayed fashion to LJ.
People are doing such neat things. There's an epidemiologist here from the University of Michigan's interdisciplinary center on social inequality and health disparities, who opened his presentation by observing that Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that a rising tide does not, in fact, lift all ships. A team from Rutgers is studying patients' "common sense models" of their chronic illnesses; they presented the amusing factoid that although 80% of patients with high blood pressure agree with the (true) statement that "patients can not tell when their blood pressure is high," 92% also agreed with the statement "I can tell when my blood pressure is high." They're studying what happens when patients' models of how their illnesses work conflict with doctors' models, and how doctors should handle the discrepancy.
Being here makes me want to write grants, and then I remember how tired I am.
Shortly we'll arrive at the lightning round of today's presentations, and Lydia will get her five minutes in the spotlight. Then we'll stand by our poster answering questions for an hour and a half, and then the NIH shuttle will return to take us back to the hotel. The meeting goes on for another day, but we're not staying. Michael has to go to work tomorrow, Alex and I have our weekly playdate with Zoe and Emily, and the government wasn't willing to shell out for an extra night in the hotel for anyone under the rank of Principal Investigator. Which is a shame, because it was plush and comfortable, and Alex loved the floor-to-ceiling mirrored closet doors. Alas.
minnaleigh! Even at lunchtime they didn't let us escape, or I would've given you a call), although I won't be able to post it until sometime tonight.It's been a crazy couple of days. I spent Tuesday afternoon and evening and all day yesterday putting together a poster display of our big NIH study (rationale, methods, preliminary results, ultra-pre-preliminary discussion), and a five-minute slide presentation for Lydia to give this afternoon. Yes, five minutes. She's limited to four slides, so she had me divide each slide into quadrants which zoom in and out at the click of a mouse, in effect giving her sixteen slides to present in five minutes. This should be fun to watch.
The mad slide-and-poster-writing rush was the same thing I always go through right before Lydia presents somewhere, except that this time Alex was with me during most of my work. (Wednesdays are a work-at-home day.) She was remarkably good, really, about being asked to share my attention with Powerpoint. But by the end of the day yesterday I was exhausted, and we still had to pack up and drive to Bethesda.
"We," in this case, meant Michael, Alex, and me. I don't travel with Lydia if I can help it, and given that by Wednesday afternoon she was still unsure about who would be watching her son overnight, this trip would've been a particularly bad time to break that rule. Michael didn't really want to spend 24 hours alone at home with Alex (go figure), so the two of them came along to luxuriate with me on my government per diem.
I think
minnaleigh's talked about the security at NIH before, but I didn't really anticipate how much there would be. A security officer came to our hotel to examine our government IDs and issue each of us a one-day visitor pass pre-printed with our names. On the way onto campus, the official NIH shuttle that had been sent for us was stopped for a session with a bomb-sniffing dog. (Lovely animal. Weimaraner, I think. At first I was surprised that it wasn't a German shepherd or something, and then I realized that of course it would make sense for it to be a scent hound.) The same security officer is sticking close to us. The one Sikh attending our meeting isn't being singled out at all, I am relieved to see.Right now I think Michael is at the Air and Space Museum, indoctrinating the baby. I'm multi-tasking: listening to presentations by other researchers funded under the Mind-Body Research program that supports our work; briefing Lydia on the finer distinctions of using Powerpoint; writing abstracts to submit for presentation at the Society of Behavioral Medicine, which meets in San Francisco in March; exercising the self-restraint to keep away from the large tray of cookies and brownies just eight feet from my chair; longing for a nap; and, of course, posting in a time-delayed fashion to LJ.
People are doing such neat things. There's an epidemiologist here from the University of Michigan's interdisciplinary center on social inequality and health disparities, who opened his presentation by observing that Hurricane Katrina demonstrates that a rising tide does not, in fact, lift all ships. A team from Rutgers is studying patients' "common sense models" of their chronic illnesses; they presented the amusing factoid that although 80% of patients with high blood pressure agree with the (true) statement that "patients can not tell when their blood pressure is high," 92% also agreed with the statement "I can tell when my blood pressure is high." They're studying what happens when patients' models of how their illnesses work conflict with doctors' models, and how doctors should handle the discrepancy.
Being here makes me want to write grants, and then I remember how tired I am.
Shortly we'll arrive at the lightning round of today's presentations, and Lydia will get her five minutes in the spotlight. Then we'll stand by our poster answering questions for an hour and a half, and then the NIH shuttle will return to take us back to the hotel. The meeting goes on for another day, but we're not staying. Michael has to go to work tomorrow, Alex and I have our weekly playdate with Zoe and Emily, and the government wasn't willing to shell out for an extra night in the hotel for anyone under the rank of Principal Investigator. Which is a shame, because it was plush and comfortable, and Alex loved the floor-to-ceiling mirrored closet doors. Alas.
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no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 01:36 am (UTC)This was in early 1999, so we didn't have the security issues, though.
Still, if you have to run a conference and have the necessary attributes to book the site, I highly recommend it.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 01:44 am (UTC)The one cool feature of the place where we had the conference: there was a flat-screen monitor on the wall of the lobby, where there was a seating area and where we'd all set up posters describing our research. The flat-screen monitor displayed people's slides as they went up on the big screen in the conference room. So anybody walking by and getting coffee in the library could eavesdrop on a little bit of Mind/Body medicine.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 01:51 am (UTC)OTOH, I seem to recall a fairly good used bookstore about half a block away from that hotel. If I had known you were in the area (for some value of $area), I'd have pointed you at it.
Prompted by the previous statement, i'm still accumulating books for Alex.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 01:53 am (UTC)Totally fascinating! Here's my guess: I think it turns on an ambiguity in the statements regarding when you can tell. When people agree that "patients can not tell when their blood pressure is high," they're effectively saying that other people generally cannot discriminate between true negatives and false negatives, but when they agree that "I can tell when my blood pressure is high," they're effectively saying that they personally can, in some but not necessarily most cases, discriminate between true positives and false positives. "People usually miss the signal" and "I sometimes get a strong, clear reading of the signal" are not mutually exclusive.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 03:08 am (UTC)Where are you at in NIH? I know there's a big conference going on because I saw the Special Use shuttle going by this morning on my way in. I'm in building 10 (Hatfield building/Magneson building), up in the clinical lab on the 2nd floor. I know there's a big conference going on in the building, but this doesn't necessarily mean aything, since there are a good many places on campus to have big conferences at.
Security has gotten stupendously tight in the last week or so since the new perimeter fence has gotten up and going. Now even the employee shuttle busses get boarded and everyone get's their ID checked at the gate instead of getting checked at the door to the building, which was done previously. We get the bomb dog in the mornings also. Heaven forbid you forget your badge.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 01:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 02:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 07:33 am (UTC)You probably know that study that was done ? early 1980s of patients of (as I recollect) Hertfordshire UK general practice which discovered how many of them were operating on disease models totally at odds with the doctors: in particular the continued prevalence of notions rooted in the humoral theory.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 12:53 pm (UTC)-J
no subject
Date: 2005-09-23 01:37 pm (UTC)People at the meeting really seemed to be excited by what we're doing! That was a very good feeling.