apples of gold in settings of silver

Heyoz

Hmmhmm, things are shaping up this week. Finally got a little slice of time today to begin looking at a research question for my Honours project.. and I realized the scope of my topic is huge! It's supposed to examine doctor-patient communication especially with regards to children with chronic illness, but there are so many angles I can tackle the topic from.

E.g.,

- effect of good doctor-patient communication on children's emotional adaptation
- effect on treatment adherence (measured perhaps by parents' measurement of how consistently they administer medication according to the instructions, or number of follow-up visits etc)
- effect on parents' emotional adaptation
- hardest to study: effect of good patient-doctor relationship on the course of illness itself!

I think I might stick to children with cancer, as I am already doing a project on them. However, the number of subjects I can access may be quite small, so... might have to include other kinds of illnesses as well.

Anyway, the good thing is I'm coming up with ideas! Yay! =)

posted by Puz @ 10:58 PM 0 comments

Groupwork and more groupwork

Huff, huff, I finally finished my section of a group presentation. Really must learn to be more efficient =( Either that, or just allow myself more time to process the information... sometimes I think I have to process things 3 times before I feel confident enough to present it in decent form, whether in a presentation or an essay! Will just have to get cracking on things earlier, also make sure I get the requirements for tasks clear.

Mm, but I do feel really really good to complete the task with a certain level of thoroughness and quality. Hee! And now that I have a bit of time (it's not too late at night) I can do some 'maintenance' tasks, like filing, editing and other low urgency but important tasks.

Aims for tomorrow: read my assigned reading for another group project, as we might be meeting tomorrow afternoon! Eeps! OK, back to work...

As a light aside, here is an amusing yet terrifyingly real picture of life as a PhD student! Makes me wonder if that's the way I should be heading! *grin* Have a read!

posted by Puz @ 11:49 PM 0 comments