Original Work Speeches & RA #16: Jan 31st - Feb 6th

During this week of ISM, I mainly focused on my Original Work (OW) speech. I built off of my initial research speech and added more information about my original work and overall made sure the entire speech related to my OW. I also created notecards so that I would be able to ensure that I hit each of my speaking points. I also added some jarring statistics to make the hook more engaging. Lastly, I figured out some goals to keep in mind for the rest of the year. My current goal is to get at least 3 interviews by the end of this month, and then my middle goal is to hopefully secure a mentorship by the middle of March at the latest. In the future, I hope to gain a research or internship position through the position.

In addition, I also completed my sixteenth assessment. It was a research assessment on the effects of the chemotherapy drug, Ibrutinib, on patients with existing cardiac disease. This drug treats lymphocytic leukemia and found that these patients are at a very high risk of atrial fibrillation, which is a cardiac toxicity. This was a very interesting article due to the fact that my grandma passed away due to the very condition that the article discussed. It definitely gave me a sense of fulfillment to be able to research the condition now that I have more experience with the medical field.