weekly updates

archived as of january 20, 2024
to keep myself accountable to my team and wider academic, donor, and patient communities, I will be posting regular updates on my PhD work.

each week, I'll also post a few recordings of my piano playing at the Royal Papworth Hospital, which is adjacent to my office. if you enjoy my music, please give to the Royal Papworth Charity here!

year 1

week 0 w/c 25 sept 2023

created reading journal
reviewed guidance documents for postgraduates and doctoral students from department and Clinical School
introduced myself to supervisory team
met future colleagues over drinks

home the cinematic orchestra

绒花 (trans. "velvet flower") hán hóng

खो गये हम कहाँ (trans. "where are we lost") jasleen royal and prateek kuhad

कसूर (trans. "fault") prateek kuhad

she used to be mine sara bareilles

week 1 w/c 2 oct 2023

wrote ~1500 (really bad) words for my thesis
shared my ideas with senior research staff and public engagement managers in the Unit
began a scoping review in preparation for a nascent paper

no piano this week! I was recovering from fresher's flu.

week 2 w/c 9 oct 2023

brainstormed thesis structure
drafted protocols for potential systematic reviews
outlined background and discussion for nascent paper
wrote a ggplot2 coding hack
designed a public engagement activity

improvisations on gregory alan isakov songs

week 3 w/c 16 oct 2023

liaised with colleagues to motivate collaboration and prevent research overlap
designed a systematic search protocol
drafted research proposals for data access
structured my first-year report

be the song foy vance

week 4 w/c 23 oct 2023

drafted a PROSPERO systematic review registration
contributed to an ongoing trial paper
taught myself about mediation analysis

medley from jonathan larson's "tick tick boom"

my favourite things after brad mehldau's improvisation after rodgers and hammerstein's "the sound of music"

(half) week 5 w/c 30 oct 2023

gathered evidence for a potential feasibility study
installed new hardware and referencing tools
made a gantt chart for my systematic review and found another reviewer

piano audio was corrupt this week, sorry!

(half) week 6 w/c 6 nov 2023

submitted PROSPERO registration document
designed systematic review screening and data extraction forms
continued learning about mediation analysis

improvisations on iron & wine songs

week 7 w/c 13 nov 2023

presented my ideas to research team leads (and discarded some, an expected result)
published my systematic review protocol (well, PROSPERO did)
attended a methods course run by my alma mater
revised a study protocol for an upcoming project

improvisations on damien rice songs