This summer, I had the opportunity to do clinical research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital in the Division of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (DDBP), specifically focused on patients seen in their multidisciplinary clinic, the Center for Spina Bifida (CSB). The project’s goals were to determine the efficacy of the implementation of a Manual Muscle Testing (MMT) algorithm in 2016; this is the first time anyone has compiled a retrospective analysis of patient outcomes longitudinally for spina bifida, since the target population is so small. I compiled and cleaned up data from between 2013 and 2019 about patient outcomes on the MMTs they received annually and also utilized the national registry of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in order to determine whether patients’ lifelong trend for mobility could be predicted by the age of 5. This project had a lot of goals, especially since it was a pilot study with a massive amount of different data points to track, so it involved a lot of dead ends and hunting for missing data. I really enjoyed my time with the lab because over the 3 months I was in SURF, I got to meet all the members of the clinic, as well as shadow all their different specialties, which really gave me a good look into how much information they have to collect. I also spent a couple days just with one patient for each day and got to see the process they go through at each of their annual visits, so I could empathize with how long and tiring their visits could be, which made the data I was looking at come alive. The biggest lesson I took away from this summer is that, in healthcare, numbers have stories—and each has significance.
Another great aspect of my SURF experience was having the opportunity to meet many different people of different ages and from a wide range of places. I worked with grad students and department heads, and some of the best friends I made were from schools such as UChicago, Kenyon, and USC. I also was given the opportunity to treat this as real-world experience since it was a 40 hr/week paid job, and is probably the closest I will ever get to co-op in my time here in Medical Sciences. I enjoyed my time in SURF because the research was meaningful and challenging, as well as introduced me to many new people who have broadened my way of thinking and how I approach the world and its problems.
