Clinical Attachment II: Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia

After a week in SunMed, I did my time in HUSM, Kubang Kerian for five weeks, or to be exact, 20 days of clinic (due to public hols, got sickie, and attended a wedding).
Was very excited to go there, as I have heard rave reviews from other clinical supervisors who were positively encouraging for us students to go there.
I must say, things were quite different in HUSM.
Firstly, the working days are from Sunday to Thurday. Honestly, I thought the time just flew by with starting the week on Sundays and Thursday being the last day of work for the week. I guess it has something to do with my mindset of the Monday blues and not having to go through that in HUSM.
Then there was the set-up and the supervisors.
For the set-up there were five audiological rooms. Each room being more specific for a particular testing, e..g.: room 5 for ABR and ASSR; room 4 for AABR and DPOAE screening.
There are 4 supervisors: Cik Su, Cik Roza, Cik Ninda and En. Khary, all of whom are UKM graduates of 1st, 2nd, 8th and 2nd batch respectively. And then there was Kak Sar, a technologist who knows the ORL department inside out; En. Adnan, also a technologist whom is just starting his degree in Audiology this very semester!; En. Yus of unknown origin but acts as the technologist at times; and Kak Lin who's the attendant of the clinic.
Anyway it was truly an experience doing my attachment there in HUSM. I learned some things I may not learn in UKM, but then that was the purpose of having us scattered all over the country in the first place right? And I also had my ears suctioned by an ENT doctor for free!
One thing for sure is: am I thankful and glad that I study in UKM and not in UIA or USM. Not that I'm insulting or anything, but those universities are still new in Audiology while the UKM students are blessed with experienced and excellent lecturers and supervisors.
Nevertheless, thank you to everyone in Audiology Clinic of HUSM for having me there. May we meet again, which I am sure we will! :)

Statistically Corrected

Met Prof Baharuddin today for sample size calculation. He's the reknowned statistician in the whole of FSKB, UKM. He actually pursued statistics because he loves it. Hard to believe anyone could ever love the complexity of statistics but I guess someone has to right? If not who will teach us ignorant students :).
Anyway.
He told me the formula that I used for the proposal presentation was absolutely wrong because that particular formula is actually for those doing a prevalence study. So malu! coz pandai-pandai saja, hehe.Blushingly, I asked him what is the right formula for my study.
He asked me what is the study and I just handed him a copy of my proposal presentation. First, he corrected my title, to quote 'it should be among older adults not in older adults'. 'Aye aye sir' I said to myself, and thought, 'hrmm, funny how the deputy dean @ my supervisor had let it pass and I am corrected by the statistician whom I am meeting for the first and probably last time'. He arrived to the objective of my study on measuring benefits, so after scrutinizing the very small font of my statistics notes, taught me to use which values to put in in the most suitable formula.
He advised me to do a pilot study on 20 subjects that fulfill the inclusive and exclusive criteria in order to get the values. Being a smart-alec, I was like, '20 subjects?? Okay... can I use the results from the pilot study's subjects as the results for the real study's subjects?'
And he said I can't. I then whined on where am I going to find so many subjects and he said to me that if you want to simply guess the number of subjects, don't come and find him to innocently ask him to teach and then not applying what is taught. I came to my senses and agreed, because it's like an insult to him right, if I do so.
After that he relented and said I can use 10 subjects for the pilot study. I asked him if he wants to be my subject and he agreed! Yay. So i guess it was kind of a win-win situation where he got his msg across to me (on understanding what he said and applying it) and I get a subject in return.
Hope he's a cooperative subject, that is, if he fulfills the subject's criterion first, of course :)

Thesis Proposal Presentation

Firstly. Yay, I'm done with it ;)
It was a 3-day marathon of presentation after presentation.
I presented yesterday (17/7). And my supervisor said it was okay~! A relief, (and a success, may I add? 2 friends said it was ok too and one even said, to quote, 'like so bergaya saja'. hehe :P) considering I have never met her!(supervisor I mean) Just came up with it based on the one-time meeting with the co-supervisor and continuous discussion with fellow thesis-mate.
FYI, before presentation day, I presented it roughly to my boyfriend, my cousin, my aunt and two speech students. To make sure that on actual presentation I tak syok sendiri, hehe. And they understood well! But admitted that it was a bit technical, of course.
So what is it that I proposed, u ask?
I'll try to explain it in laymen terms.
Basically, it is an advanced research of one of my seniors. As I've mentioned in an earlier blog, she did the same thing except her population is the schoolchildren. So her findings revealed puzzling results, where the benefits of bilateral are similar to left-unilateral fitting while the benefits of bilateral is higher than right-unilateral fitting.
As it is generally known, the right ear hears better because of how the brain works. It's called the right ear advantage. So from her findings, my senior hypothesized that when wearing the EduLink on the left ear, the benefit of EduLink (which has been proven where wearing it is better than not wearing it. To quote my bf, 'Duh, that's why it's created in the first place') combined with the right ear advantage leads to the similar benefit of bilateral fitting. The right-unilateral fitting on the other hand, with only the EduLink benefit and no left ear contribution resulted in the obvious better benefit of bilateral than unilateral fitting.
Am I making sense so far?
That very hypothesis justifies this research where I'll be conducting it on the elderly population. Studies have reported that the older people have decreased right ear advantage. So I need to find out if there is a right ear advantage effect that influences the EduLink fitting, besides determining the relationship between both variables.
I think that was a very straight-forward explanation.
With a good start on the proposal, I hope I will be on the right track all the way :)

The First Meeting (Finally!)

Friday, 11th of July was a significant date in my thesis history. I finally get to meet my supervisor! Mind you, co-supervisor. My main supervisor, the 'mother-of-audiology-in-Malaysia' to quote a certain clinical supervisor, had to attend a meeting at the last minute and re-scheduled my meeting with her with Dr Cila instead.
Nevertheless. It was a very fruitful meeting.
The night before the meeting I frantically put up a mediocre proposal for my supervisor's attention. I must say, I was thankful that she discussed about the thesis first before seeing a little bit of my proposal. I thought my proposal was an embarrassment, it was nowhere near what she and Dr Siti wanted. And she was very understanding on the fact that it was my first ever meeting.
So she set things straight for me and my thesis mate and gave very useful journals.
She advised to get as much literature support as possible, or in her own words, 'need to read more' and be critical of the journals read. Oh and get a larger thesis notebook (She actually showed her own collection of thesis notebooks that she had over the years. 'saje nak eksyen la tu', hehe just kidding Dr Cila! ;p).
The meeting got me quite motivated to do my best on the proposal presentation later on. But now... I am so bogged down with all the journals, I don't think I can read any more.
HeLp!