The 2nd Workshop for the Urban Slums Project team in India

Last month, Prof. Luc de Witte and Prof Mark Hawley joined project partners in Bangalore, India for a 2nd workshop as part of our international project “a mobile diagnostic and screening toolkit for urban slums settings”.

18 participants from our local partners attended the workshop, held in Bangalore Baptist Hospital, Bangalore. This included technology experts, health professionals and community health workers with experience working in urban slums.

The workshop aimed at reaching a consensus between the team and project partners on the design of the mobile toolkit.  Many exciting discussions were undertaken covering a range of topics from key consideration in the design of the toolkit, the toolkit content, to the tests and technology that will be included.

At the end of the workshop, the team agreed on the next phase of the project which will include designing and evaluating a basic prototype of the toolkit.

For more information about the project, please visit the link below:

http://www.catch.org.uk/current-project/urban-slums-settings/

Written by Sarah Abdi (Centre for Assistive Technology and Connected Healthcare) Email: s.q.abdi@sheffield.ac.uk

My research attachment at ScHARR

Pim Taleongpong

Pim is a second year medical student who worked with Miss Lauren Powell to produce a review about the use of apps with children and young people with ADHD. This is how she found her experience:

I was placed within the School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR) for six weeks and worked on a project titled “Children and young people with ADHD – is there an app for that?”. During this time, I performed a scoping review to find out if there is evidence to suggest that apps can be beneficial in the management of paediatric ADHD. We have found that there are many apps for children and young people with ADHD most of which serve as a tool to help children with self-monitoring, time management, task scheduling and cognitive training. There are also apps that are designed for clinicians to help with decision making and treatment planning for patients with ADHD. These apps have great potential to improve ADHD management in children and young people

As a medical student, this was both an educational and eye opening experience for me as I began with very little knowledge about scoping reviews and also ADHD. Over the past six weeks I have had the chance to develop my critical appraisal skills and learnt new techniques to perform enhanced literature searches. It has been amazing to see how rapidly technology is changing medicine in the 21^st century, this has reinforced to me how important it is to be aware of new and unconventional treatments. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time at ScHARR and believe that the skills that I have learnt will positively impact on my future practice.

Written by Pim Taleongpong

Reflections of Research

Meet Frankie, she is a second year medical student at the university of Sheffield and has spent the past 6 weeks working with researcher Miss Lauren Powell in a research setting for the first time. This is what she has to say about her experience...

I have spent the last 6 weeks on a research attachment in the School of Health and related Research (ScHARR) writing a scoping review on whether apps can be useful for children and young people with ADHD. I found the task a little daunting at first as I haven’t done much academic writing before and a scoping review was a whole new type of paper to me.

As I gained a deeper understanding through carrying out more research, I found this project really engaging. It has been interesting to expand my knowledge on ADHD and to find out about new apps that can be useful. I particularly liked the apps that used technology such as eye-tracking and the indirect apps that could be used by teachers, parents and doctors surrounding the child’s life. I am excited to find out about new research as it is conducted.

I have developed many skills during this project including; learning how to carry out database searches and screen hundreds of papers, improving my excel skills, learning how to make a consort diagram and improving my referencing. This is also the first paper that I have written with a literature review and I enjoyed how each part would flow into the next: What ADHD is. How it affects the child’s life. Why it needs to be managed. How technology is engaging. That apps are an accessible form of technology. Everything made sense!

I would like to thank our supervisor for doing a great job, tracking our progress each week and making sure that we’d made sufficient progress. As a novice in the academic writing world, I feel like this project has helped me to develop all of the skills required with academic writing and has given me more confidence that I can bring to future projects.

Written by Frankie Dimambro-Denson

6 weeks in research- My experience

Izzy Faulkner

Izzy is a second year medial student who attended a 6-week placement with Miss Lauren Powell. It was her first experience of working independently within a research setting...

Having never properly experienced research before, I was apprehensive about starting my research attachment. The world of research seemed a scary place to just a second-year student, having come to University straight from sixth form. My school was a relatively small school with small class sizes and plenty of guidance, so 6 weeks of independent learning was a new concept to me.

The main thing that my time in research has taught me is that time management is key, this is the part I struggled the most with, as the majority of my past learning experiences (school and lectures) were fairly structured. I think that my time management skills improved as the 6 weeks progressed and I hope that the experience has made me a more independent learner and made me less reliant on structured timetables.

The 6-week placement has also made me appreciate the importance of research to the practice of medicine. Having researched the use of apps for ADHD for my placement, I now (think) I understand how much technology can impact on your practice as a doctor. This will hopefully mean that I can use the research skills that I have gained in the future to keep up-to-date with the latest research, in order to be the best doctor I can possibly be. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have a brief encounter of the research world and hope that it has made me a better doctor-to-be.

Written by Izzy Faulkner