This participant was a very heavy smoker. I cannot remember the specific amount he claimed to smoke throughout the day, but I assume it was at least more than one pack. One way we could measure the level of smoking of our participants would be measuring CO levels. The participant blows into an apparatus (similar to a breathalyzer), which would then report the amount of residue from smoking cigarettes that remains in the participant's lungs. There is always a large range of CO measurements, depending on how heavy of a smoker someone is, as well as the last time the participant had a cigarette. Since we usually measure the CO levels when the participants first walk in to the lab, the levels are often sky-high since people often have cigarettes right before they walk into the building.
The particular participant had CO levels that were much higher than normal, even for someone who had smoked recently. This let us know that he was a very heavy smoker, which is ideal for our lab that is studying cigarette cessation in relation to marijuana use.
However, after having to deal with this participant, we may have experienced a smoker that was simply too addicted to participate in our study. During our screening process, participants come in between 9 AM and 5 PM in order to be trained and further examined for study eligibility. The day is long and boring, but it acts a perfect simulation for the conditions of the Inpatient segment of the study. Although participants do get several smoke breaks throughout the day, this particular participant could not wait for his breaks. He begged the staff to let him have frequent breaks, claiming that he could not function for long without smoking. We did let him have more frequent smoke breaks; however, this let us know that the participant would not be able to withstand the long, smokeless hours that would make both the Inpatient and Outpatient days. Furthermore, although most participants have a variety of negative reactions to quitting cigarettes, he would have reacting extremely negatively to the "quit day" (when the participants would have to stop smoking cigarettes). This participant showed that there are indeed too extreme people for our study.
Friday, August 22, 2014
Monday, August 18, 2014
Summer Volunteer
Hello! Starting again with posting a few of the writings I've done over the summer, but haven't gotten to publishing them. Here is a post from when I started my summer research:
Since the beginning of the summer, there has been an influx of volunteers (mostly undergraduate) working in many different areas of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, or the surrounding Columbia University Medical Center. Many students from Columbia, or other college students living in New York City over the summer, have taken summer jobs in the research labs and other medical center facilities. I definitely enjoy seeing more people around my age around the institute, especially the students that I was able to interact with in the lab.
There are two additional volunteers who began to work in the Marijuana Lab. One volunteer is in the Res Lab, while the other spends her time in the Outpatient Lab. Both of them are Columbia students, and they were both on similar paths as I was (although I believe both of them are more set on the pre-medical route than I am). We have been able to talk about experience at the lab and at school, so I definitely benefit from having other perspectives around me.
The only issue I have encountered so far is the amount of space and work that is available in our research lab. Even as a school-year volunteer, I sometimes felt as if there wasn't enough work to occupy both of the full-time RAs and myself. Now that we have two additional volunteers, sometimes the RAs are at a loss of things that we can all do to help out. Due to the slow pace of research, we often reach a limit on the things that we are able to do, because we are waiting for the experimental cycle to progress. Hypothetically, we could find some small things to do that would make the lab more efficient (filing old papers, organizing our offices, etc). I sometimes wondered why the RAs were never interested in pursuing smaller projects like that (and maybe I wasn't proactive enough to tackle them on my own!). However, I believe that the RAs really do not think smaller things like that are even worth the effort of doing them. Sometimes the only option is to wait.
Since the beginning of the summer, there has been an influx of volunteers (mostly undergraduate) working in many different areas of the New York State Psychiatric Institute, or the surrounding Columbia University Medical Center. Many students from Columbia, or other college students living in New York City over the summer, have taken summer jobs in the research labs and other medical center facilities. I definitely enjoy seeing more people around my age around the institute, especially the students that I was able to interact with in the lab.
There are two additional volunteers who began to work in the Marijuana Lab. One volunteer is in the Res Lab, while the other spends her time in the Outpatient Lab. Both of them are Columbia students, and they were both on similar paths as I was (although I believe both of them are more set on the pre-medical route than I am). We have been able to talk about experience at the lab and at school, so I definitely benefit from having other perspectives around me.
The only issue I have encountered so far is the amount of space and work that is available in our research lab. Even as a school-year volunteer, I sometimes felt as if there wasn't enough work to occupy both of the full-time RAs and myself. Now that we have two additional volunteers, sometimes the RAs are at a loss of things that we can all do to help out. Due to the slow pace of research, we often reach a limit on the things that we are able to do, because we are waiting for the experimental cycle to progress. Hypothetically, we could find some small things to do that would make the lab more efficient (filing old papers, organizing our offices, etc). I sometimes wondered why the RAs were never interested in pursuing smaller projects like that (and maybe I wasn't proactive enough to tackle them on my own!). However, I believe that the RAs really do not think smaller things like that are even worth the effort of doing them. Sometimes the only option is to wait.
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