Monday April 9 2012

Friday I was able to present my project before several of my peers and a facilitator. This was able for me to be able to defend my project before an audience of my peers. I realize while doing the presentation that the reason why I was up there was not for them to critique or pick holes in what I was planning on doing but it was for me to do that exact thing. I no what it is that I want to do while in India but everything that I do for the prep course can actually get me much closer to realizing the difference between what I say I want to do and what I am actually planning on doing.

Last night I did a lot of research for an idea that Rem gave me during the presentation on Friday. As I was presenting he informed me that in India the participants/general population that I will be working with are not going to recognize my terminology but that they will recognize the concept. Specifically he was referring to the idea of western and traditional healthcare. I now know that when people refer to traditional medicine they say homeopathy. When they want to talk of wester medicine that say allopathy.

I did some quick research last night on homeopathy medicine and it was amazing how quickly I got real time current and up to date results back from on line. Here are some of the things that I found. "Homeopathy is a form of alternative medicine. Practitioners treat patients using highly diluted preparations believed to cause symptoms in healthy individuals similar to the undesired symptoms of the person treated." That is from Wikipedia page on homeopathic medicine. Here is another definition from another source, "Homeopathy, or homeopathic medicine, is a medical philosophy and practice based on the idea that the body has the ability to heal itself. Homeopathy was founded in the late 1700s in Germany and has been widely practiced throughout Europe. Homeopathic medicine views symptoms of illness as normal responses of the body as it attempts to regain health.


Homeopathy is based on the idea that "like cures like." That is, if a substance causes a symptom in a healthy person, giving the person a very small amount of the same substance may cure the illness. In theory, a homeopathic dose enhances the body's normal healing and self-regulatory processes."


Thus we see that it is not the exact same thing as ayurvedic medicine but it is similar enough that it would appear as if maybe the practices or even just the names are used interchangeably. I think there will be a lot of room to study both of them when I get on the ground. This will be the goal of my first few weeks or so on the ground in India. I hope to be able tor early define clearly what type of medicine is being practiced.

Friday April 6 2012

I just had a great strategy session. I talked with the Margaret and I realized that the survey that I am proposing to do in concept is great but the way that it is to be carried out needs to be very different. There is a good chance that with the survey questions(ill attach at the end of the post) that I’m proposing to conduct will be much better suited if it is given as a structured interview and not as a rigid survey. Also including something in my methods and procedures having to do with a period at the beginning of my stay, spending some time getting to know what is currently offered in the village of Chavadi and the city of Coimbatore. 

I really like this approach a lot because there is a lot of things about the medical system in India that I can't learn in medical journals or on wikipedia. I want to spend a couple of weeks documenting what is being offered and what people consider to be the appropriate forms of medicine then conduct my interviews and surveys with that in mind. There is a lot that can sway or disrupt my data flow and finding out half way through that people don’t even consider pharmaceuticals or some other predominate form of western medical care as such. That is my worry and the best way to prepare for that is to observe and gather information on what is performed first then go and set my own data points and coding for what kind of care people receive. That is way to much for what I want to do and I feel like this is a great step in making my data much more valuable.

I am for the first time in a while really getting excited about going to India. I never have been not excited but I can see clearly now what it is that I will be doing and I can see what will stand in my way. Knowing both are helping me really see what it is that I should do to get ready.

Wednesday April 4 2012

I have spent the last several hours refining my project proposal and here is what I have come up with. I had no idea what I was doing when I initially started this project. It is a great feeling to really feel like I am accomplishing something. I realize that there is a lot yet to be done and I know that the proposal that I currently have is not anywhere close to what I need to have but it is what I would consider a good start.

There are several things that I feel that I need to nail down and I will list them now.

First I need to be clearer in my declaration as to what I want to do with my statement of intent and the title of the project. I still really feel like there is a better way to put what I am trying to say in my paper. I have also attempted to make my statement of intent as personal as possible but I think that it lacks a certain academic edge that I also want to convey.

Second, My lit review and background is sorely under developed. I have a general idea as to what I want to do with this section but I feel that there is a lot of research that I have done in defining the two types of medical care that I will be analyzing and I feel like it isn’t pertinent enough to fit into my Lit Review or background. I hope to be able to explain in more detail what it is that I have learned about the topic of healthcare in india but I dont know how I can fit this into my project proposal.

Third I have a lot of loose ends and conflicting suggestions as to what I should do with other parts of my proposal. I hope to be able to straighten out these miscongruiencies and add some serious clarity as to my intentions in the proposal.

Monday April 2 2012

Its April already. March seemed to have flown by. In the rush to get several things done at the last minute in March I found my self striving to accomplish a lot in seemingly very little time. This all culminated this friday when I got the chance to catch up on a lot of my annotated sources and work on the over all direction of my paper. I really feel like the direction which I should go is an over all logical analysis of healthcare and health in general followed by a the definition of the two types of healthcare that I will be analyzing in order to be able to differentiate between the two when surveying the people.
Here is the general outline that I want my paper to follow.

Statement of Intent:
Personal reasons and specific scholarly reasons that I want to study this topic and live in India.

Lit Review:
Healthcare: Definition of Healthcare as a whole Health will be defined as well here
Two types of Healthcare in souther India and the current system for receiving healthcare in India.
Traditional:Ayurvedic
Western: US style medical atteniton
Current issues and problems with both
Combination of the two types of healthcare in India
Other forms of healthcare

Methodology and Procedures
Here I will describe in detail how I will distribute and conduct the survey that I have written up for the project above.
How I plan to locate my age group
Where will be established by locating different places where my potential age group exists
What I plan on doing when I find my age group

The rest of my proposal will come in a different blog post. This comprises parts A-C in order to give a good foundation for the research that I will conduct.

Friday March 30 2012

I am still stuck on how I am going to tweak my project to be focused on an aspect of neurological science. I sat down yesterday and talked with my primary mentor and we nailed down some of the details that he wants to see in my research while I am abroad. The ideas that he had proposed were great and they really helped me see how possible what he wants me to do. So spent some time and I’ve come up with a plan. I want to keep the project the same. I want to add just one line or part to the main hypothesis or idea that specifies the addition of neuroscience aspect to the research. This will look something like this, "What are the perceptions among college age students in Tamil Nadu regarding healthcare options, Traditional and Western, when faced with a neurological disorder."

I think that neurological disorder might be a little ambiguous and I want to focus on how I can make that more clear when describing what it is that I want to do. I really want to survey people that have some sort preconceived notion of neurological disorders and see what treatment method they would prefer. I realize that it will be hard to have them see what it is that I want to know so being overly clear in explaining what I want to know will be crucial. There will be a tendency to see what I am proposing as a type of western approach and depending on how I pose the question that I am asking I might sway the answers because of my apparent western look.

So the things that I need to focus on in writing my proposal hypothesis or focus are:

1 The clearness of what I am looking for

2 The absence of any bias on my part when presenting the two options.

3 Finding correct translations for terms and ideas.

4 Focusing on all people between the ages of 18-25 and not just those that attend colleges.

There is a lot to come but I realize that I have a lot to change and get approved before I leave. Hopefully I can come up with an appropriate proposal soon.

Wednesday March 28 2012

In all reality the only thing that I have been able to do in order to really move my project along since the last time I wrote was an intense overhaul in my ideas surrounding what I am supposed to be doing in India. I have decided that I want to focus on something a little more soft science angle as far as science goes with the Neurological disorder that I am going to choose so that almost instantly puts me into the depression or anxiety corner as far as what I want to evaluate as a part of my study. Here are my reasonings why.
1. I feel that if I am able to study the effects of anything I want it to be something that affects a lot of people, and depending on how the terms depression and anxiety are defined in India culture I should potentially be able to find plenty of people that have an opinion concerning one of the two. In contrast, autism and schizophrenia are much more localized and smaller scale problems that affect few people. Thus my pool that I will be able to pull from will be much larger.
2. There is a possibility that me asking questions about specific neurological disorders might bring up some hard feelings or even might create a problematic level of discomfort for my subjects. This is a possibility due to the level of investment and emotion that people usually devote to loved ones and close acquaintances that suffer from more serious disorders. I hope to avoid this problem altogether.
3. Anxiety especially can be put in to phrases that are just as easy as a serious really defined disorder if done correctly. I worry that I might not be able to communicate my intentions in asking why I am asking if they have felt down or sad. But I think that I can think of a way to phrase anxiety for the purpose of the study I might be able to have it be very non invasive and people should respond normally to it.

I do have other reasons that I will expound on later but I need to focus on what I am going to do and just move on it with regards to the amount of energy that I am spending in defining the word. It might be a good idea to figure it out with contacts that I can make now in India or here for that matter to determine in what way people will respond to my surveys and questions in the field.

Monday Mar 26 2012

Like I said on Friday this last week has been quite the week of deadlines and interesting events that have led to the near completion of my IRB. I spent much of the week pursuing the task of finding a mentor and locating someone who has a similar interest as me in this project. I have decided to take yet another turn in the direction of my project. Upon talking with my professors in the Neuroscience Department I have decided to do a health study that coorelates with the neuroscience curriculum. We commonly study neurological disorders and problems that are common in society so instead of studying just the general percetions of Indias regrading healthcare. I wish to survey them based on thier disposition to go and seek medical treatment for existing medical condidtions.

This only makes sense because medicine is what I want to study. The program requires that I do a course contract and that I focus on something within my discipline. Thus the idea of combining two great project ideas cant be overlooked.

See Annotated source for March 23 to see data that refers to the number of poor among americans that report their own depression.

The biggest thing that I am walking away with after this weekend is the need to really focus my self on how I am going to communicate what I want to know to the people that I want to know it from. In other words I am really worried about how I can tie any neurological disorder into my project with out it seeming overly invasive or overly intrusive. I realize that neurological disorders in any culture can be kinda taboo and I hope that I can sensitive in addressing in any culture. How that will be effected in the culture in which I will be living I still am not sure and I really want to find out in order to be as effective as possible.

Much more thought and planning will have to go into my research as I think about the thin line of ethics and appropriateness that I will be forced to walk now.