My survey and interview project is fully underway! At the start of this week, I worked with Dr. Phillips to further finalize all of my survey forms in Redcap, and at the end of the week I sent my first recruitment email to participants. I got so excited when the lab’s phone rang on Friday and it was a question for me! The recruitment response was great- after just a few days, I have almost half of the women I need for my study. Redcap allows us to schedule emails to be sent out based on whether or not they respond to surveys linked in prior emails, so the women who did not respond to my initial email will be contacted again next week.
One of the biggest frustrations these last few weeks has been securing access to the study’s email address. In order to use Outlook, we found out that I also need to have a Northwestern staff email address. After exchanging many emails with Feinberg IT, talking with them on the phone, and screen sharing on a few occasions, we came to the conclusion that we need to ask someone higher up in the department to give me permission to make a staff account. In the meantime, I am working with a team member to send emails through her account so that the study isn’t halted!
At the beginning of this week, I also worked on writing a “Manual of Procedures” for my study. Dr. Phillips is very organized, and her goal is that everything we do in her lab is clearly recorded so that our team can easily reference the manual. It was difficult to write at the beginning of the study since I am still working out many of the procedures for myself, but fortunately I had the manuals for the IMPACT and Fit2Thrive studies to reference for ideas.
I was also fortunate to have some time in the evenings to meet up with friends! On Tuesday, I went with a sorority sister to see the Beguiled, which I admired for its emphasis on the women’s perspective of the events, a result of the influence of director Sofia Coppola, but ultimately was not as much of a thriller as it was marketed to be. Later in the week, I went shopping and bought my first suit for upcoming medical school interviews. I was also able to meet with friends for dinner a few times (Koco Table in Evanston is a new fave) and have plans to go to the beach with some of my friends from high school over the weekend!
-Annie