so, in response to great demand (read: one comment), here is what i do at work.
i am assessing the degree of accuracy a survey tool has in identifying people at high risk for becoming infected with hiv (in infectious disease lingo, these folks are known as 'seroconverters'). these high-risk people come to the counseling and testing center that projet san francisco runs in kigali. they are considered high-risk because they are the hiv-negative partner of an hiv-positive person. so, anytime they have unprotected sex within the relationship, they are at greater risk than people who are concordant negative (as opposed to the aforementioned discordant couples our project is most interested in). besides this, i am also looking at some of the other measures with which we track risk for seroconversion. i'm comparing the coital diaries (yes, couples are supposed to record their sexual acts in this diary) couples maintain against vaginal swabs of women for errors in self-report. also, i'm examining how much sperm is detected when a patient self-administers a vaginal swab vs when a nurse administers a swab vs when a nurse performs a speculum exam.
all fun stuff: i will be using sas (the bane of my existence during fall semester last year) to analyze a bunch of data, periodically. i'm writing a modified consent for female patients who may just be crazy enough to have 3 vaginal exams done during the same clinical visit. and, i'm going to hopefully be doing some quality-control activities (this may change).
that is what i do at work. i'm looking forward to never being employed by this organization, though. yay!
Thursday, June 21, 2007
what i do at work
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8 comments:
so by QC, do you mean you'll be comparing a patient's vaginal swabs vs. some sort of control? Your own swab, swab?
um, yummy! I'm so ridiculously grossed out by your work. Vaginas, gross!
oh, gross. no, not me as a control, andrew. looking at the pt's swab vs a practitioner-collected swab vs speculum exam, with the last one being the gold standard. it's just the vag swab is typically used here, as it's quick and less-invasive (for the women).
scottie: i don't have to do the swabs or anything. i just analyze results and go merrily along!
vaginas are gross.
the "vag" swabs. that was all i needed to hear you say, lakshmy. VAG.
Ah. I get it. And vaginas are not necessarily gross. Just when they're foul smelling, exuding frothy fluid, or discharging a child. Which is pretty much the only times I see vaginas, come to think of it.
Um lakshmy, your blog has been seriously lacking in the posts lately... What am I supposed to do at work if I can't continually follow your adventures 24/7?!?!
I'm with Scottie. This post is certainly racking up the comments but we're waiting for new stuff.
Perhaps it's the after hours internet restriction put on you by your boss. Nonetheless, type something up offline and give it to us when you can steal a second.
don't worry--i'll always be the most undedicated, inconsistent blogger. i have no competition in that category.
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