Week by week

Friday, August 27, 2010

This was my first week at UIC in the NUHS Mentored Research Program

Week Ending 8/27/10
                This was my first week at UIC- classes started, I met with my mentor, Dr. Nadine Peacock, and have been busy doing all the administrative things that go with being a new student.  I am taking Community Health Sciences 400: Public Health Concepts & Practice, Epidemiology 403: Introduction to Epidemiology: Principles and Methods, and IPHS 409: Global Public Health Challenges.  There seem to be many group projects and papers in my future and it will be nice to use a different part of my brain after all the exams at National University of Health Sciences (where I am completing a doctor of chiropractic medicine degree).
                This week I also met my mentor, Dr. Nadine Peacock.  She is an expert in qualitative health research methods and has given me access to her course, CHSC 434: Introduction to Qualitative Methods in Public Health, so I can try to learn things that will be pertinent to what I am doing this semester without having to take her class (it meets at the same time as my Global Health course).  We have decided to use my trip to Ghana at the end of September as an opportunity to work on a project.  Now I have to begin researching everything there to see the best direction to take this!
                I am going to begin researching the healthcare system in Ghana.  While there, I hope to interview the different people that provide health services there to determine what their patient base is like, when their services are utilized, and specifically about the musculoskeletal complaints they treat.   Through these interviews it is my intention to demonstrate if there is a need for chiropractic services in Ghana and if so to determine in what ways it can be implemented to best integrate it into the existing healthcare framework and cultural beliefs.  There are a few chiropractors in the country, but primarily in the main cities whereas my trip is in a more rural area.  It is going to be a lot of work to get everything in order before I leave so Dr. Peacock and I will be meeting regularly in hopes of getting this all done.

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