Hey everybody!
My name is Philip DuBose, a rising senior at Jones College majoring in Cognitive Sciences and minoring in Global Health Technologies. I am very grateful to be working as a part of Rice360’s Houston-based internship team this summer! As such, I’d like to extend a special welcome to my Rice360 blog!
I’ve read a lot of these blog posts in the past, and it seems the consensus is that the first week moves quicker than you expect. My experience, without a doubt, has been no exception. This first week was a crash course into exploring global health and the engineering design process. We’ve had a lot of fun, yet truly meaningful collaborations with the SEED interns, as well as some of our colleagues from abroad that will be joining us in Houston in the next couple of weeks! I say truly meaningful as in every single one of these meetings, we were able to form something beautiful: a connection.
This is one of the main reasons why I feel drawn to the field of Global Health. To not just attempt to solve a problem, but instead truly understand, empathize, and care for each other in the face of adversity is such a powerful thing. That was the mission in each of these meetings, and it felt as though everyone was on the same page. Even in this first week, I have gained so much perspective! I’m excited to gain even more as this journey continues.
As for the project this summer, my teammate Diya Gupta (please go check out her blog too!) and I are going to be working together on a breast cancer training model. For the direction of this training model, in all honesty, we are somewhat caught between two options. One is a low-cost breast cancer screening model that trains clinicians on how to perform clinical breast examinations (CBEs). The second is a breast cancer biopsy model that would train clinicians to perform core needle biopsies with the assistance of ultrasound. We’ve been hard at work researching both potential projects, and in turn, this generated a lot of questions. Almost too many to count! We’ve met about 3 times with our internship lead Dr. Ashley Taylor, and once more with another vital member of the Rice360 team, Dr. Meaghan Bond. While by all means, we would like to jump into this project, what matters more is that we have the right foundation and understanding of the problem at hand. This being the case, this upcoming week we are planning on meeting a group of clinicians at MD Anderson, as well as a few of our Rice360 colleagues to ask some questions to better define our need.
I never imagined I’d be working side by side with doctors –not this early on in my life, at the very least. Are the nerves there? Absolutely. But I’m choosing to place more of my energy on preparing to learn and get this project started!
I’m so excited to embark on this new journey. Thank you all for tuning in and I hope you’ll stay around for the next blog post!
