Experience 1: Bass Connections (HLTHPOL 395/396T): Closing the Gap on Health Disparities and Outcomes in Hypertension (2023-2024)
Dates: August 2023 – present (100 hours)
Advisors: Dr. Bradi Granger; Dr. Holly Biola
I am an accepted member of the 2023-2024 Bass Connections Team, “Closing the Gap on Health Disparities and Outcomes in Hypertension” (Link: https://bassconnections.duke.edu/project-teams/closing-gap-health-disparities-and-outcomes-hypertension-2023-2024). As a part of this project, I help facilitate a novel hypertension class and initiative for self-monitoring of blood pressure for low-income, high-risk patients at a Federally Qualified Health Center, the Lincoln Community Health Center located in Durham. I make bi-weekly phone calls to recruit patients for the classes. I register patients and help monitor/report their blood pressure values at the end of each class. We are currently submitting our work and research from this past Fall 2023 semester as an abstract to the 2024 Social Mission Alliance Conference, also co-hosted by Duke University School of Nursing.
Experience 2: Bass Connections (HLTHPOL 395/396T): Closing the Gap on Health Disparities and Outcomes in Hypertension (2022-2023)
Dates: August 2022 – August 2023 (300 hours)
Advisors: Dr. Jennifer May
Around 6.5 million Americans over 50 years old are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer (LGBTQ+), and experts expect this figure to jump to over 20 million by 2060. As they get older, LGBTQ+ adults will need long-term care from healthcare providers trained to meet their unique needs. However, staff at long-term care and skilled nursing facilities often say they’re not ready to support LGBTQ+ elders and are asking for more training to better serve this growing, underserved community. Our team developed a toolkit to train and educate healthcare workers and staff involved in the care of LGBTQ+ older adults at the HOPE Collaborative nursing facilities. The toolkit, called LGBTQ+ Inclusivity Training & Education Initiative (LITE), consisted of an educational website (https://phmo.dukehealth.org/LGBTQ), a best practices flyer (https://phmo.dukehealth.org/sites/default/files/2023-03/Duke%20Health%20LITE%20-%206%20Best%20Practices%20for%20LGBTQ%2B%20Care%20-%20March%202023.pdf), rainbow badge pins, and writing pens with the LITE logo. For this project, I was a co-author of our abstract accepted for presentation at 2023 Southern Gerontological Society Conference (Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YbP3OPss_eC45NkHwW4JBofxYnE3xEDP/edit) and 2023 Gerontological Society of America Conference (https://doi.org/10.1093/geroni/igad104.3450), an invited presenter at a Duke Margolis Seminar in Health Policy & Management (Link: https://ctsi.duke.edu/news/duke-ncsp-scholar-led-bass-connections-teams-present-research-findings), and a co-author of manuscript in submission to Journal of Post-Acute and Long-Term Care Medicine.
Experience 3: PSY 101: Introductory Psychology
Dates: January 2022 – May 2022 (130 hours)
Advisors: Dr. Bridgette Hard
This class was an introductory dive into psychology, touching on the nervous system, sensory perception, learning, and the theories behind emotions, social influence, and behavior. Through this class, I also learned about the psychological research framework and devised a research proposal. My research proposal focused on whether various social determinants of health impact one’s inclination to support universal health care across party lines. This course shed light on the importance of psychology in understanding how individuals think and make decisions, particularly emphasizing the psychological effects experienced by patients battling diseases, and stressing the need for engineering advanced medical treatments that take mental health into account.
