These past two weeks had been the most thrilling and event packed weeks of my internship so far. I say ‘so far’ because I am even more thrilled for our next big event tomorrow– but more about that later. Now? Let’s focused on these thrilling two weeks.
Proposals to help the Mammography Units
Anxiously, I sat down with Jessica, Thiago and Carol in a meeting with Dr. Edmundo about 2 weeks ago. As left off from the cliffhanger last time, this meeting with Dr. Edmundo was for us present and discuss all the ideas we had been working on to help the Mammography Mobile Units. We first went over our observations on our trips with the Mammography Mobile Units, and then we broke down our proposed projects of what we would like to help with during our time here. Relieved, I was really glad to see Dr. Edmundo receiving our ideas well!
So far so good.
But before we could move on to the more long-term goals we wished to accomplish with our projects and ideas, we were interrupted.
It was a most honored interruption by the secretary to let us know that the CEO of the hospital was free and would be leaving soon. We jumped out of our seats and excitedly and closely followed Dr. Edmundo down the hall to the CEO or Dr. Henrique Prata’s office. After hearing all about the humble beginning and the accomplishments of the hospital, it was a great honor to meet and sit down with the man that had the idea and made it all happen.
(From left: Jessica, Dr. Henrique PRata and me)
Afterwards, we continued and finished our meeting with Dr. Edmundo. Overall, the meeting went well, and Dr. Edmundo was interested to see the implementation of our ideas. We were excited to get started and turn thesevideas into projects!
GFM – Pap Smear Pilot Study
One of our missions here was to see how the GFM can help with cervical cancer screening in Brazil. Since day one, we have had meetings and discussion about how it could help; but It was only these four days in the pathology department that we really learned what we needed to do next.
The goal of the pilot study was to simulate the usage of the GFM on the Mobile Unit with minimally trained personnel, or in our case, cytotech students.
On Day 1 of the pilot study, we brought down the GFM to the pathology department where Dr. Cristovam, Elisandra, the cytotech student and 10 conventional Pap smear slides were waiting. As Elisandra started perusing the fully covered conventional Pap-smear slide line by line, she started to run into some difficulties. We switched to liquid-based Pap-smear slides and made some quick changes to the GFM to improve the usage and bypass the difficulties, and we were able to continue the pilot study again. The difficulties we ran into though really helped us learn about some limitations and new improvements that need to be added to the GFM for a better usage with conventional Pap Smear slides.
(changes to GFM. left: curved extension on the slide holder of the GFM limited slide movement; right: curved extension cut off to allow the slide to be viewed)
On Day 2 and 3, we worked with more cytotech students to complete 3 trials in the pilot study. In those two days, we also received important feedbacks that we would be taking with us. Finally on day 4, we collected the images and used the images to simulate diagnosis with the professional cytotechs at the hospital.
All the results are in now, and we’re just waiting for the final analysis!
Mobile Units to the North
Quite some time ago, we sat down with Dr. Carlos, an oncologist that travels with the Mobile Unit on the long trips to the north regions of Brazil. Different from the Mammography Mobile Units that we have been on, this Mobile Unit performs cervical cancer, prostate cancer and skin cancer screening for the people in these rural parts of Brazil. We learned about the work of the Mobile Unit and the set-up preparations, and one thing stuck out to us– the training for the local nurses.
Two months prior to the Mobile Unit’s arrival to the cities up in the North, nurse from the cities’ local health clinics come down to the Cancer Hospital in Barretos to get trained on cervical, prostate and skin cancer and on the preparation work they need to do for the Mobile Unit. After the 3-day training, the nurses take the knowledge with them, but not any materials for reference in the following two months.
After our meeting with Dr. Carlos, Jessica and I decided that we would put together an E-book that would contain all the information for the nurses and give this E-book to the nurses in a CD on the last day of their trainings. The nurses could then access the E-book from the local clinics, use the information as references and share the knowledge with other health professionals.
E-book, Blog and Education Booklet
So in the last weeks, we have put together an E-book guide with all the training information for the local nurses. In addition, we have put together an instruction guide for the use of the blog that we set up for the nurses on the Mobile Unit. This blog was meant to facilitate updated communication and organization between the Mobile Unit nurses in each region and between the nurses and the Mobile Unit directors. We also put together an educational booklet for patients that came to the Mobile Unit. The booklet contains basic information on the Mobile and on cancer and cancer prevention, and it is a guide to help bridge information and knowledge gaps for the patients.
With all the materials ready — the E-book, the Blog instruction guide and the Educational Booklet, we sat down with Dr. Edmundo again just this afternoon and showed him everything that we prepared.
The meeting went well. Dr. Edmundo thought our ideas and approaches were interesting, and gave us some tips and some new ideas of things we could add to our projects. His feedbacks and two cents were very helpful!
Off to Mato Grosso!
As I mentioned in the beginning, we have a big event tomorrow– we’re going on a week long outreach trip with the Mobile Unit to Mato Grosso, a state in the North Amazonas regionof Brazil!
It’ll be a long travel but an exciting trip. So see you guys in a week!