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Today’s post is a deviation from my typical day-in-the-life programming! I’d like to tell you about what it was like to attend the British Blood Transfusion Society (BBTS)’s 2024 conference, which marked my first time at a national academic conference.
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Yesterday, I walked by a two-story building
on the edge of a London retail district.
A woman with electric hair waved me
in from the biting chill. I said I was
there to say thank you. The portraits on
the walls almost looked like people I love.
I decided to ask if they took walk-ins.
I tried orange squash for the first time.
It did not taste like a squash. I drank
almost a litre. I wondered if I had become
a new state of matter. Someone dressed in
blue gave me a booklet to read. Someone else
pricked my finger and asked where I had lived
every year since I was born.
I had to say my name and birthday and address
every time I did something new. I managed not
to forget them. Someone felt the crooks of my
left elbow and right elbow. They decided my
left side was best. I watched as they slid in
a silver needle. They told me to squeeze my
buttocks tight. They watched me do it too.
I was busy texting. When I heard a beep,
I thought something was wrong. But it just
meant they had taken all they needed from me.
They told me to stay lying down and to keep
squeezing my buttocks. They kept watching too.
They stuck a bandage and tape to the crook
of my elbow. I always forget to shave there.
I surprised myself yesterday. I make plans
for everything. Seeing the pictures was
not my plan. I was nervous sometimes, but I
kept talking and squeezing my buttocks.
The next time I give a presentation,
I will try that again.
London has given me new life.
I had to give something back.
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Our Biomedical Campus
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This Thursday, I approached the stage of the Cambridge Union’s debating chamber with a plastic bag in my hands. Inside, I’d placed a can of tomato soup and a bottle each of sriracha, dishwashing liquid, and fruit juice. And no, I wasn’t using them to share a recipe for a haphazard dinner …
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Today was going to be the Big Day.
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It’s been a week of presentations! On Wednesday, I presented findings from my first primary analyses in an intimate setting and had a great conversation with the attendees. On Thursday, I presented to a larger audience, including senior scientists within the Department of Public Health and Primary Care. I’ve also built on my manuscript draft for that primary analysis, which I hope to share with my supervisor soon. I’ve also spent several hours trying to improve on a proposal for a simulation modelling analysis according to comments from my supervisor. Finally, I’ve been working through final admin procedures for our accepted review paper!
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Whew … it’s getting late. It’s almost bedtime and I’m still on my work computer! I would never consider this acceptable normally but have made an exception for this chaotic week. I’ve continued to respond to my supervisor’s comments on my primary analyses, realising that I will need to make substantial changes to the variables used. I’ve also made a dummy dataset that enables me to test my simulation modelling code before I receive the “real” data … though I haven’t done most of that testing yet. And perhaps most importantly, I’ve submitted revisions for our systematic review manuscript, which has now been accepted for publication!!! I hope to share the published paper with you all within the next two weeks.
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Time for an apology … I forgot to upload a blog post last week! I have little excuse, except that I had some lovely friends visiting and might have forgotten about this habit amidst the chaos. Anyway, I’m back now, and I come with exciting news! Two reviewers have submitted their comments after I submitted my review manuscript a month ago, and I’ve already begun responding to them. I hope to complete these “minor revisions” (in the journal’s Associate Editor’s words) within a week and move this work closer to publication. During the rest of the week, I’ve been attempting to improve the predictive power of a model I’ve fit within a planned simulation model, revising my thesis draft of my first primary analyses following feedback from my supervisor, conducting a second review of a transfusion-related manuscript, and finalising data access request documents for a near-future (I hope!) project. Things are changing fast, and I’m trying my best to keep up.
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I’M BACK! After a period of annual leave from Oct 3-18, I’ve returned to Cambridge and am currently working from my college. In the few days before my travels and the day and a half since, I submitted our review paper for publication, made a lot of slide decks to share proposed ideas with my supervisor, fleshed out a manuscript version of my first primary analysis, and liaised with the undergraduate students who I’ll be leading seminars for in a few weeks :) I kept an eye on emails while away, so I have little to catch up on on that front. I’m still reeling, though, from a pile of outstanding to-dos.
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WE’RE GETTING CLOSER! This week, I focussed on addressing the final comments of my co-authors on our systematic review and meta-analysis manuscript. In trying to get back to the flow of things after my week of “conference-holiday”, I also made a million update slides about various proposed analyses for next week’s supervision meeting … Finally, I’ve been preparing to lead seminars for first-year undergraduate medical students by reading through lecture materials, attempting the quizzes they’ll be asked to do, and wrapping my head around the logistics of the Cambridge system.
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I’ve begun implementing some of the feedback from my first-year assessors, which has led to somewhat drastic (though sorely needed) changes to my proposed work. Broadly, though, I’m plowing forward, and am now trying to improve the fit of some models I would like to use for a discrete-event simulation. I also found some small errors in my code for my first primary analysis, so I have been working to correct those and improve that piece of work before I attempt to adapt it for journal submission. Finally, I met with international collaborators and presented a study proposal with short notice, receiving some interesting and useful feedback!
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I have some news … it’s unofficial, but I appear to have passed my first-year assessment! There is a good chance that I will be permitted to continue this adventure, albeit with some changes to my project plans. What an honour to have this opportunity to keep moving forward - I will think of this ruling in the days when I am constantly plagued by the inadequacy of my work.
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My mind is blown! It has been a huge week of trying to understand simulation modelling methods, and a few papers that my supervisor recently shared have been instrumental in that process. Luckily, I’m not alone - I have multiple colleagues using those methods. By Saturday (today), I’ve put together a rough draft for a Methods section of a potential thesis chapter or manuscript. I know I’ll rewrite nearly all of that section in months or years, but I’ve seen countless resources advising me to write early! I’ve also been addressing a final round of comments from two co-authors of my systematic review and meta-analysis and am somewhat heartened that this truly appears to be our final round. Finally, I’ve been saturating a printed copy of my first-year report with tiny post-its, which point out all the mistakes I’ve already found in that work, the changes I’ve since made to my study designs, and the over-ambitiousness of the timelines I originally set. My assessment is happening on Thursday, and I hope I’ll be ready …
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Just on time … I submitted my poster for my Glasgow conference on Monday with a few hours to spare! I resisted the urge to place a tiny illustration of me with my polar bear near my contact details, but we’ll see whether that’ll make it onto the printed version … For the rest of the week, I planned my approach to several primary analyses using our blood donor studies, interrogated my first-year report some more, and made minor revisions to my review manuscript! My working days were a little shorter than they usually are this week as I recovered from a jarring weekend, but I’m okay with my progress.
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Yes, I kept to my word :) I started preparing for my first-year assessment this week, which included looking through transparent peer review reports from journals like the BMC family to determine what my assessors might ask me about my own research. It’s been a fruitful, though challenging, process, and I’m sure I’ll ideate even more questions in the coming week. I also completed a Nature Masterclasses course on peer review (highly recommend!) and continued to develop the Discussion section of my primary analysis. And I thought I’d finished my poster for my September conference, but I’ve just spotted some potential errors, so that’s a task for next Monday!
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BIG MILESTONE ALERT! This week, I submitted my first-year report, a relatively brief summary of my progress during year 1 of this PhD. I am ever grateful for the support of many communities that enabled me to put together this work. It’s a relief to get that document behind me, but deadlines continue to pile on top of me … I have been working to finalise my poster for my September conference, which is generally looking better than before, but I have now found even more things that make it look terrible! I’m learning that this is the reality of designing a research presentation. Luckily, I have around half a day on Monday to get that work up to standard before sending it to my supervisor for perusal. On the side, I’ve been trying to improve my interpretation of my primary analysis findings, which has demanded a new level of understanding in terms of the psychologic and physiologic processes implicated in donation complications. I’ve found that I’m most fulfilled when knee-deep in that “making meaning” work, despite its difficulty and frustrations.
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HOME STRETCH ALERT! After approximately two rounds of revisions by collaborating authors, I’ve sent off my review manuscript for final comments. I hope to submit the manuscript to a transfusion-focussed journal this month (maybe that’s ambitious … ). I have managed, too, to complete the academic contents of my first-year report (i.e., not the acknowledgements). I’ve also been burying my head in simulation modelling papers and making notes about what my own study might look like, which will culminate in a presentation to my supervisor in around a week from today. Finally, I’ve made several more versions of my conference poster, which is looking slightly less terrible after I found a way to simplify my graphs and figures.
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Whew, that was tough! I have been focussing on incorporating the feedback of four senior co-authors for my systematic review and meta-analysis this week, which has been a rollercoaster (but a rewarding one that I’m grateful to embark on). I am nearly ready to send my revised version for final comments next week. Fingers crossed! I have also continued to iterate my poster for my Glasgow 2024 conference, which still looks terrible but has, at least, several more terrible versions than before.
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One of my earliest completed tasks this past Monday was to format the title page of my first-year report … how productive. Anyway, I managed to finish the actual content of that report throughout the week and sent it off to my supervisor on Friday! It’s pretty mammoth, and my next steps will be to think of questions that my assessors might ask after reading that work. I also spent the week outlining my poster for my Glasgow conference in September, which has already gone through several (unsightly) iterations - at least the Background and Methods sections are on their way to being complete. Alongside that, I’ve been trying to learn more about the methods I’m hoping to use for a simulation modelling study in the coming months, which are still causing me great confusion, but I’m optimistic that the outputs of that modelling will be worth the tedium. Finally, I’m proud to announce that I completed my first attempt at a peer review following an invitation by a senior colleague in the transfusion medicine space! I’ll work with my supervisor to refine my review before submitting it next week. What a privilege to engage with wider academic community :)
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The most consistent part of my work this week was my daily removal of 100-200 words from my first-year report, which is already over-length without even being complete! I’ll learn to expect a similar problem when it comes to writing my thesis … In the meantime, I tried to improve the clarity of each chapter and look forward to doing more next week before I send a draft off to my supervisor on Friday. As promised, I investigated the methodology of my proposed simulation study a little more, though not as much as I could have … another task to carry forward. Importantly, though, I decided between two proposals for survey studies of global blood services that I hope to share with senior researchers in the next few months.
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HECK YEAH! I submitted a revised version of my review manuscript to senior authors this Wednesday. And on Thursday, I submitted a thesis draft of my primary analysis to my supervisor. Those pieces of work are probably very rough, but I’m glad I got a lot of my thoughts and results on paper. This week has otherwise been a gradual exercise in compiling my first year report, whose word count I am learning is going to be a struggle to meet …
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WOOHOO :) I managed to re-run some analyses for my systematic review and meta-analysis according to the feedback of senior colleagues and have made some plots too (they’re not very beautiful yet). That’s been the main focus of my week, and frankly, most of that work was tedious and mind-numbing. I could have made things easier for myself by coding some functions to automate the process, but I didn’t think I’d have the time. Regardless, that project is moving towards completion. Alongside that work, I ran a series of analyses using English donor data and began tabulating and interpreting my findings (for what feels like the millionth time). My understanding of those data is constantly changing, which is both a joy and a frustration.
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FREE PIZZA! Yes, there was free pizza when I presented my (non-PhD) work with colleagues part of the charity MedSupplyDrive UK at one of our newest campus buildings this week. And in the office, I continued plugging away with my primary analysis, which I had intended to finish writing up this week but which has grown in unexpected ways (and will therefore need some more time to finish … ). On the bright side, I am making small but fascinating steps forward in developing other ideas using the data I currently have, as well as proposing work using data that I hope to apply to access in the next few months. My most urgent task, though, has been augmenting some analyses for my systematic review and meta-analysis according to the feedback of senior colleagues, which I hope to submit to a journal soon.
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I DID IT! I shared my first-year PhD work with interdisciplinary researchers at all levels in my department this Wednesday. It was a highly fulfilling experience (despite my going too fast while speaking), and I was lucky enough to receive kind feedback from colleagues and fellow PhDs. Most of the week was taken up by my preparations for, and delivery of, the presentation, but I also spent some time developing my interpretation of my primary analysis, which appears to be constantly changing …
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As promised, I met with one of our Dutch collaborators and had a chat about our shared research interests. I was happy with the rapport we built and how much I learnt! In fact, we continued emailing back and forth throughout the week. My main task for the rest of the week was to prepare a 15-minute presentation …
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I DID IT! I brought my thoughts together in time this week and drafted an abstract for submission to a conference I’d like to attend this September. The unconventional nature of both the exposure and outcome my study uses has caused a lot of doubt in the way I conceptualise my work, but I was thankful for my supervisor’s reassurance that this was perfectly normal. I think that my approach to this work will continue to change until the day I submit my thesis, but I’m here for the ride. Otherwise, I improved a proposal for some new analyses that have much more ambitious data requirements and look forward to sharing that with colleagues in the next week.
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I’ve made a mistake. Halfway through the week, I started questioning how useful my first primary analysis was and emailed my supervisor in a toned-down panic. We met at the end of the week to talk things through and decided that the best way to proceed would be to keep what parts of the analysis I could while tuning up some parts so that they fit better with the “story” of my thesis and contributed more substantially to the evidence base. So this weekend, I pulled a working-for-too-long day and got some ideas and code together. I’m going to present everything next week and see how things go … Luckily, at this preliminary stage, I can say that I feel more confident about these analyses than the originals. During the rest of the week, I presented the old version of my primary analysis (which, despite not being very clear, received some kind comments from attendees about their design) and developed a proposal for some future work that might incorporate some data linkage! Fun times.
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What a whirlwind week! I’ve barely had the chance to reflect. I’ve been preparing slides (only three!) for a presentation next week to fellow early career researchers in public health, madly reimagining short- and long-term ideas for my PhD and discussing them with senior colleagues, and ideating how to analyse a new outcome of interest in my primary analysis.
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I’ve been feeling like an undergrad again! This week, I took a three-day online course on causal inference methods in quantitative research from beloved colleagues at UCL. The content wasn’t easy, but I think I caught what I needed to. It might be years before I can understand those methods fully!
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I MADE MY FIRST POSTER PRESENTATION! On Monday, I stood (and sat) for around 2.5 hours in a downstairs meeting room of my office building while clinical staff and a few patient representatives perused the research on display. I had some insightful discussions with the attendees, some of whom were current or former donors and others of whom had experience with venipunctures in clinic. There’s much to learn from colleagues who see patients “on the ground” - that’s something I’ll try to remember in my three(-ish)-year-long odyssey analysing data from very healthy people.
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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:
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I had the privilege to meet with blood donation research experts from across the EU, England, and Australia this Monday as they gave their feedback on our research unit’s completed, ongoing, and proposed work. I learned about the current priorities in our field and was inspired by our visitors’ engagement with my many questions! During the rest of the week, I read around the systematic review and meta-analysis literature to determine the scope for developing new methods for synthesising multiple studies (something I’d been inspired to think about during the completion of my own review). I also received feedback on that review chapter from a kind colleague and made important changes, including some slight statistical modifications. Finally, I’m excited to share that my abstract was selected for poster presentation during a research sharing event on the 29th with our clinical colleagues, which brings me to …
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Silly me! I spent longer than expected this week fixing mistakes I had made in describing my results. I also ruled out a lot of analyses that I had originally proposed (at least there were some decisions made). At the same time, I spent valuable time interrogating the best measures to use for donor health outcomes, as well as developing some primitive methods work I had begun alongside the drafting of my systematic review and meta-analysis.
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WORD COUNT REACHED! This Monday, I cut down my systematic review and meta-analysis publication draft to 4000 words, which is a common word limit set by scholarly journals (and I’m trying to identify the best one to submit to!). My thesis chapter is still mammoth, but now that I have one concise draft, I’ll be able to modify that chapter too. For the rest of the week, I expanded upon my first primary analysis of blood donor data (it may seem like I am constantly expanding those analyses, but I will only include substantive details of a small number of analyses in my final draft). For example, I looked at differences between the relationships between less and more severe versions of a risk factor and an outcome of interest. This week, I also expanded proposals for ideas I previously generated for further analyses of randomised trial data. Finally, I’ve been conducting “mini-vivas” in writing, where I imagine questions that peers and assessors might have and write down my answers. That process has helped me refine both substantive pieces of work I have produced since the beginning of this doctorate.
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I continued to refine my first primary analysis this week, looking at how robust my results are to unmeasured confounding (or the influence of unknown variables on the associations I find). I’ve also done a massive clean-up of figures and tables for my review, which has improved their clarity and readability for both my thesis and potential publications. Speaking of publications, I’ve been slowly killing my darlings and refining my results interpretations to meet journal word counts for that review! It might be the hardest editing work I’ve ever done …
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This Monday, I presented a portion of the main results from my first primary analysis to my supervisor and received an encouraging response. Then, I continued to tweak my systematic review and meta-analysis draft, trying to turn my long-winded narrative into something suitable for publication. Finally, I put together several slide decks to explore new areas of research that may have implications beyond blood donor health …
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I interpreted some results from my main analyses this week and conducted additional analyses to see whether those results remained the same under different conditions (we make a lot of assumptions in epidemiology!). I also added some worked examples to the appendix of my systematic review and meta-analysis and made my figures a little neater for inclusion in the thesis. That’s been a lot of my work this week - trying to understand where different pieces of research fit into my final product :)
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I started running my main analyses this week and tabulating the results - at this point, I can only say that they look interesting :) I then had some ideas sprouting from my ears and am trying to develop some new proposals using existing data. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I am rewriting my systematic review and meta-analysis draft after detailed feedback from my supervisor!
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I DID IT! I finally organised my dozens of bookmarked journal articles. Are you proud?
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I’ve moved boldly forward with my first primary data analysis this week, handling missing questionnaire data and assessing associations between my variables of interest. I still have some questions about the data that need addressing before I can move forward with my main analyses, but I’m hopeful that I can resolve them in good time. Alongside this work, I’ve been drafting proposals and liaising with potential collaborators for new projects relating to the safety of blood donation. More updates to come!
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I finally produced a complete (bad) draft of my systematic review and meta-analysis this week, as well as using the Endnote extension in Word to generate proper references (future me will be grateful). I also combed through the data I received at the end of last week, performed some simple cleaning, and investigated missing values (which are common in questionnaire data). During that process, I made a few rudimentary results figures describing the study participants, which I hope to include in my final write-up after some modifications.
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NEW DATA ALERT! This week, I received the data I’d requested - good timing. I confirmed my study analysis plans for a few days before opening the dataset and beginning to clean it using the statistical software R. Then, I cleaned up results presentations and interpretations for my systematic review and meta-analysis. Finally, I met with senior colleagues to discuss a possible new collaboration to enhance the application of our blood donor datasets to broader health research questions.
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I improved the appearance and clarity of my forest plots for my meta-analysis today (they are a type of a plot that shows the results of different studies alongside each other, as well as a summary effect across those studies). I also wrote up my (very disorganised) interpretation of my findings for my thesis and for future publication. On the side, I’m preparing a manuscript with colleagues and planning primary analyses on a dataset of English blood donors.
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I ran some sensitivity analyses for my meta-analysis this week, which are analyses that confirm or deny the robustness of my main results. I also learned why and how to implement heterogeneity measures, which (as I mentioned last week) give readers an idea of how similar or different studies are within a meta-analysis. They’re a bit of a pain to code, but I suspect the interpretation gains will be worth the effort! I also read, for the first time, about assessing small study effects (reduced in some papers to publication bias, but encompassing a broader set of causes of heterogeneity). These are effects that cause studies with fewer participants to show different results from studies with more participants. Finally, I tried to devise clearer ways to present my mountain of results. That remains a work in progress.
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I continued to refine my meta-analysis this week, producing tables and plots for each section. I learned more about methods for making effect estimation more conservative in the face of substantial differences between studies. I also met a long-time collaborator of our research group and discussed future study directions.
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I worked repeatedly on my meta-analysis this week. I continued to extract summary data manually from published studies, which often proved tedious. I also wrote a few functions to pool estimates across multiple risk factors with greater efficiency. I split up the week with two or three days of deep work on methods write-ups, but those need refining to be more context-specific. On a related note: I’m a little infatuated with Microsoft Word’s “Insert > Equation” feature right now.
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please see here :)