april 22, 2024: a week in the life

this week

Hooray! I designed (and re-designed and re-designed after helpful comments from colleagues) and printed my first-ever research poster for our campus-wide event on the 29th (that’s next Monday!). Here’s a picture:

I also continued to interpret results from my first primary data analysis, making a slide deck to explain my findings to unit colleagues in an upcoming meeting. The process helped me to understand my own thought process better - the number of variables and numbers I am dealing with requires careful handling and cautious conclusions! I also developed some ideas about quantitative synthesis methods, drafted the first half of a proposed paper, and sent that to my supervisor for feedback. Alongside these pieces of concrete work, I also spent a long while generating ideas, especially those examining the extent to which our risk of adverse events when giving blood changes over time.

next week

It’ll be a rollercoaster of a week, and my seatbelt’s on! On Monday, I’ll be standing next to my poster for around three hours while scientists, researchers, and clinicians from mostly clinical backgrounds navigate the lobby of my office building. I hope one or two of them will stop to talk to me, and I’ve tried my hardest to make my results visually intriguing. We’ll see …

On Tuesday, I’m presenting findings from my first primary analysis to unit colleagues, which constitutes around thirty minutes of background, methods, results, and interpretations. I’m not sure whether I’ll have a voice after Monday, but if I do, it might be gone by Tuesday :)

On Thursday, I’m meeting with my research advisor to solidify our plans for the next few months (and years!) of this PhD. We’ll exchange ideas (and hopefully say no to some of mine because I have too many).

And on Friday, I’m looking forward to taking at least a half day off to visit friends in London and see a concert. I confess that this was brilliant timing from a naïve late Michaelmas me.

outside the lab

I took some time away from the office on Tuesday to invigilate three hours of a mock maths exam for undergraduates in my college. I should say that I pretty much worked, uninterrupted, during their exam, and that my only duties were to take attendance at the beginning, remain vigilant throughout, and collect papers (and make sure they had names!).

on the reading list

Jamal Z, Perkins A, Allen C; Research Advisory Group; Evans R, Sturgess J, Snowdon C, Clayton T, Elbourne D. Patient and public involvement prior to trial initiation: lessons learnt for rapid partnership in the COVID-19 era. Res Involv Engagem. 2021 Mar 8;7(1):13.

weekly photo

Ducks are allowed to walk on the grass in our college.

about me

I’m Yaning (she/her), a PhD candidate in Public Health and Primary Care at the University of Cambridge. I am working with colleagues in the Blood and Transplant Research Unit, the Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, and NHS Blood and Transplant (England’s national blood service) to improve the safety and efficiency of voluntary whole blood donation. I’m supervised by the amazing Dr Lois Kim and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research. This is my blog about my journey through this candidature, starting from nine months before my transfer of status. Please feel free to reach out at yw645 [at] cam [dot] ac [dot] uk!