By Felipe Barandiaran
Introduction and Overview
My name is Felipe and I am entering my senior year at Johns Hopkins studying Molecular and Cellular Biology. This summer, I interned at the University of California Berkeley School of Optometry Clinical Research Center, CRC for short. This was my third consecutive summer working at the CRC; I’ve been there throughout my time as an undergraduate.
The CRC is an office of the optometry school that is concerned with conducting optometric research studies on human subjects. The best way I can describe the research to readers who may be unfamiliar with clinical optometric research is to imagine a setting much like your private optometrist, who you would go to for regular eye exams. The microscope optometrists use in private practice, called the slit lamp, along with a variety of other ocular surface imaging machines, are the primary tools used in our research setting. The CRC employs licensed optometrists and PhDs, who work together to plan and conduct the visits for clinical studies.
My role is Research Assistant, and as the name implies, my tasks pertain to furthering research project in a diverse manner. When I first started out, I was primarily tasked with subject recruitment, folder prep, data management, and other simple tasks. Going into my second summer, I proposed a novel research project to the CRC’s principal investigator (PI), and the ShutEye study was born.
ShutEye Specifics
As the project lead and creator of ShutEye, my role in the office became somewhat more involved. My first task was to write the protocol for the study, which included everything from describing the purpose of the study from an intellectual/research perspective to closely defining inclusion/exclusion criteria. Writing the protocol was impactful to my career thus far as a researcher in eye care. The process is encouraged me to think critically about study design and the disease I was interested in.
Lagophthalmos is a condition where the eyelids do not fully seal, especially during sleep. This lack of incomplete eyelid seal can cause extreme desiccation of the ocular surface, worsening dry eye symptoms and corneal health. The goal of my study is to investigate the impact of three interventions that are designed to induce eyelid closure on ocular signs and symptoms. In doing so, I hoped to understand the specific ways that lagophthalmos contributes to worsening dry eye. To these ends, I designed the study to be structured as follows: subjects are seen for a baseline ocular surface health evaluation, and are then dispensed a weeks worth of a randomly selected one of the three interventions. They return after nightly use on both eyes for a week, and their ocular surface is evaluated again. They then return to the office after a weeks washout for another baseline exam, and are given a new set of interventions. This process repeats until each subject has used all three interventions. This study design lends itself to making recruitment and enrolling a large sample size quite difficult, as each subject and the investigators must commit to many visits. For this reason, and also because it is a cross-over study, means that we are able to publish with a sample size of 15.
Lessons Learned, OKRs Applied
Approaching this summer experience having first established a framework from which I could conceptualize progress in terms of my professional relationships and goals was extremely beneficial. In brief summary, my OKRs pertained to fostering a positive mentorship-style relationship with the doctors in my team, maintaining a healthy and active lifestyle, and furthering the overall research goals of the CRC. By delineating key results for each objective, I felt more empowered to build towards the more overarching goals. I firmly believe that small steps are the key to large results, and this framework certainly helped in that sense.
Lessons Learned and Future Applications
The primary lesson I learned this summer was that communication is the single most important component of an efficient team. There were moments where I had to adjust my communication style to accommodate different needs and to optimize the teams work flow. As a result, I feel more in tune with my fellow coworkers. I feel that their needs and goals are considered in my approach, and with that being the case, they reciprocate the approach as well. A large component of this improved communication involves regular check ins and casual messaging to supplement larger email and verbal communication. I find that the more casual texting form provides a low stakes, but still convenient way of getting across any given need or task that must be communicated. I have faith that I’ll be carrying these skills and lessons forwards to my future career opportunities. Communication is certainly central to research programs, and I hope to continue to evolve my ability to coordinate with larger and more complex teams on interesting projects.
