Day by Day Research is Coming Along

As week 5 initiated, I was enthusiastic about continuing to interview patients from the clinic. Monday came and we headed to Colon early in the morning as usual. I collected 12 interviews from the patients and gave them the nutritional presentation. They were so intrigued by every slide and they thanked me for teaching them.

Every time that I give them the presentation, they are all so appreciative of the time I took to do the presentation. In the end, I really hope that they put all that education into good practice.

On Tuesday we headed out early to Colon, however, Dr. Penafiel had cancelled all of his patients that day because he had something to do in Panama City. Therefore, I was only able to interview 5 patients that day. Leaving me with a total of 96 patients in total for this week. In addition to that, I gave a talk to about 30 of Colon’s Tuberculosis health care workers.

The talk informed them of what our international research consisted of and seemed very interested. This presentation was very informative, but we did not give them any kind of results. In the end, they gave me suggestions and their input on this issue. They also asked when I would be presenting the results. That day I was also able to sit through that meeting and see what issues are present among health care workers in Panama.

On Wednesday, we had our lab meeting and our presentation of articles. We also discussed different objectives on TB and HIV research. Then they showed us their new research lab at INDICASAT that is currently being moved into.

On Thursday, I shopped once again for food items needed to make 50 more food bags in which the patients get as an incentive for allowing me to interview them. In the evening, I distributed the items and created the bags.

On Friday, I read articles and started on my final presentation. I also entered data from the week and made sure that all data was clean and neat.