Kelley Saunders: Alzheimer's in the Lab & Clinic

by AFAR

So far, my experience with the MSTAR program has been fantastic. I am doing research at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute (BAI) in Phoenix, AZ. My project is working with the Arizona Alzheimer’s Registry, a database designed to appropriately match people with research projects currently conducted at sites in the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium. At this point, I am still extracting data from the registry for statistical analysis and every step of the process has been a learning experience. As a newcomer to scholarly inquiry and manuscript writing, I have a lot to learn and luckily…

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Sydney Harvey: A Changing Experience

by AFAR

This is Sydney Harvey's second entry. Read her first MSTAR Diary to learn how she began her MSTAR experience. I can’t believe it’s been 4 weeks since the summer began, and I am midway through the MSTAR experience. I’ve learned so much in four weeks, yet I’m left with a sense of amazement in how much more there is to know. The mentoring I’ve received has been fantastic. In the lab, I have been given increasing amounts of responsibility. In the first week, my mentor was a little uneasy about…

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Andrea Vo: Endoctrinology Research Skills

by AFAR

After two weeks already in the MSTAR program, I feel like I have been granted a deeply personal and exciting look at clinical research and endocrinology/geriatrics. I am currently working with Dr. Jill Crandall, an endocrinologist, in a study about resveratrol, which is a natural substance found in red grapes and wine and believed to increase longevity. The purpose of the study is to see if resveratrol would lower blood sugar levels in pre-diabetics aged 50 to 80 and therefore prevent diabetes. As simple as the hypothesis may seem, there are so many facets to the clinical research study itself to…

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Victoria Yeh: Many Lessons Learned

by AFAR

This is Victoria Yeh's second entry. Read her first MSTAR Diary to learn how she began her MSTAR experience. During the past few weeks, I’ve been looking through many patient exercise diary entries to record the illnesses and injuries they experienced during the time that they were monitored. Throughout this process, I’ve learned a lot about the challenges of data collection in clinical research. One of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that the wording of survey questions is very important – for example, if you ask patients whether an injury interfered…

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Linda Scheider: Reading Charts

by AFAR

This is Linda Scheider's second entry. Read her first MSTAR diary to learn how she began her MSTAR experience. This is about the midpoint of my time here working for the Geriatrics department under MSTAR. I have truly enjoyed my experience so far. As of the beginning of this week, I finished going through my list of 500 charts for the chart review. This was somewhat dull work but I got faster and faster at it. Some of the patients are very interesting and the more charts I read, the more familiar with Geriatric medicine I became. Now I know…

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