Malle Program Focus Group

Well tonight was a great turnout. Everyone came on time and had a whole lot to say. We picked a very good group. It's like everyone fed off eachother's energy. I was assigned the task of taking notes on the giant post it for everyone to see. Diana later explained to me that this was so that people can refer back to points if they get lost, and just to assure them that we were listening intently. Everyone participated and had intersting points. The things that stood out the most or what was mentioned was culture, respect, and most of all trust. Meaning that patient navigators in the Malle Program (patient navigation in the Chamoru community) need to know the culutre of the patients. They have to know the diet, some language, general beliefs etc. of the patients, and above all have respect. It was even said that if you didn't know the culture that well as long as you showed respect and was well informed/educated. Another major theme was trust. This meant confidentiality and sort of blind faith. If you tell the patient(s) you will drive them to their appoitment and will come at 3:35 they expect you to keep your word. Overall this focus group was very interesting. I learned more about patient navigation and got some creative ways to improve the program's state. Whether this means bettering the system of the naviagtion or just getting more word out there I'm sure we can make it happen. At the end of the discussion our moderator started talking about breast health and how she was deemed the "susu" lady because she would talk to so many people about breast health. Then everyone else chimed in and it was very entertaining, and even informational.

Regular Day

Today was normal. Diana had a sort of lecture for me and Tayweave. It was all about qualitative research. I remember learning about a guy that came up with the system that you use whenever you are measuring the quality of something. Diana gave us an example of how she used the model to measure the quality of healthcare. There are three bins: structure, process, and outcome. Basically the strutcure is like the facility/enviornment, the process is the services, and the outcome is as such. The rest of the lecture was like charts about process models and the human experience. That is...too much to write lol. I did pay attention though, don't get me wrong. The thing I remember taking away from the lecture was that if you ever get lost or confuse always refer back to your original framework of the project. Mexican food for lunch, yum. Just another regular day.

With Meaning

Well Friday I didn't have time to do my daily blog so that's right I'm doing it today. Well I'll do 2 days in 1 blogpost. So here's how Friday went down... Me and Tayweave attended the Southern California Edison's Community Forum for Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders. It was for our community exposure, we were shadowing an executive director of a commnity based organization, GCN. It was at the Grand in Long Beach. It was really nice there were like 2 breakfast tables so naturally we grabbed the table that was closest to 1 lol. They also gave us bags with a notebook and flashlight. Very cool. They also had keychains and little bracelets, all very green and very cute. They first played a short movie about Edison, not too exciting. Then they started talking and introducing people, also not too exciting. Later on the introduced who would be in the panel and why. Uncle Joey told us to pay attention to each speaker's technique. He said to take notes to use for future reference if ever we have to speak one day. He also told us why he chose not to wear a suit. He said that these people are looking for Pacific Island organizations and he wore a short sleeved shirt so that they can see his tribal tatt and realize that he is someone they should be talking to. After that we went to GCN to have our final workshop. We basically checked in with Kush to make sure that we are on the right track. Later we had a few presentations. We talked about the difference between qualitative and quantitative data is. We also talked about baggage and that we need to keep in mind that everybody has their own baggage which is rarely the same baggage as us. We also talked about our presentations we will be giving at the end of working with our researchers. We even sang Uncle Joey happy birthday. Kush then told us that when we blog to write about what you took away from the day or what something meant to you. So I will write that the workshop really made me understand why Pipeline is important and why doing the research is important. Which is, when you go to the government and want to say something is a problem in your community you need to have justification, which is your research. Now I will appreciate transcribing and do it with a little more meaning because there is a bigger picture.

Long day

Today is the first day I'll be working from 8-4. Boooooooooooooooooooooooooo. Can you guess what 'll be doing? That's right transcribing :) Horay. I only have and hour and a half left to go. Geehs. Diana says that 10 minutes of transcribing takes usually an hour. Why is it takin me life 4 hours lol All bad. Good news: we got more people confirmed for the focus group today. Now all we have to do is prepare the papers we'll be utilizing. I just created a sign up sheet. Yay I feel accomplished. It's freezing in this office though. Sheesh

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you know what that is ^ ?
It's snow lol It is snowing in here. Hopefully it gets warmer as the day goes on. Well as my day goes on I'll be transcribing. It is interesting, but it's just so painstakingly brutal. I mean I love the story, but I just hate having to go back and get every word down. Every giggle, every laugh, every um ... even every "inaudible dialog."
Tomorrow we're having our workshop here, which is awesome. Because before then me and Tayweave will be at our community exposure at the Grand. It's like something with Edison or something. Then we come here for the workshop. We'll be going over all the paperwork we've been doing for hours and whatnot. Hopefully I don't leave anything out or forget my papers. Well, I guess I'll continue my long day.

Winding Down

So today Diana wasn't able to come in today. Her poor daughter has a cold. But we still have a lot to do. We will be working on confirming the people we have recruiting and seding a recruitment log to Diana. She also explained to us what she will be doing with the transcripts we complete. Basically the transcripts will be coded. Coding is going through transcripts and deciphiring what certain terms/phrases contributes to a theme. A theme is what researchers believe to be the big picture of what the transcript(s) is. She gave us an examply of her Latina study where the theme was a family first kinda thing. She also told us the importance of having more than one researcher reading through the transcript. For instance there was an anthropolgist by the name of Margaret Mead. She went to Samoa to study the culture and over all way of life. Diana said that Mead reported that young females said that the they experience a lot of sexual freedome. Which shocked myself and Uncle Joey because we both know very well that the Samoan culture is super strict/conservative. So another anthopologist went to Samoa, a man, and got a different story. Here's a link to read what Mead wrote http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/scientist/margaret_mead.html There is still dispute to whether which story is true. But it just sets an example of why more than one interpretation is needed. All we have to do now is finish transcribing and getting ready for the focus group. Our hours are almost finish, it's kind of winding down. Not in a bad way, just because we're almost done.

Good Friday

So I forgot to post my blog yesterday. Hmph. Anyway today it was hecka cold in the GCN offices. Plus I wore a dress, wrong idea. So I just been transcribing and recruiting people for the focus group. I tried inviting people that we didn't know so well so that we could have refershing ideas/feedback. Diana also gave us text to read that she copied from a book on Focus groups. So I'll probably read that for the remainder of the hour. Because believe it or not, transcribing is getting a little dry. Not the interview itself, but the constant stopping and going back to capture every single um and uh huh and laugh. It's so painstakingly crucial. Uncle Jay brought us some mickey dee's though. Scarfed down a 10-piece real quick. It was good though. Our workshop got canceled. It was kinda sad because I really wanted to see UCLA, but then again I'm glad I don't have to drive! My uncle said that I would have to leave at like 645 just to be at UCLA on time. YIKES. Well next week I'll be working from 8-4, horay. Get her done ya know?

Relief

So me, Taylor, Uncle Joey and Dr. Tisnado just finished our meeting. It went great. We just discussed the next steps for our focus groups. Today we were supposed to go over the list of names for possible recruits. Instead, we went over the script of what we would say. Then we realized that we wouldn't really use the script because we know the people that we are planning to ask. Then we did some role playing with Uncle Joey for practice. Then we actually called someone. However she totally didn't really ask questions lol She just immediately agreed to come. So there goes your script. The next lady I called did all of the talking lol she just said yes and didn't really listen to my shpeal because she started to talk over me lol. It's ohkay though because she's funny and even gave me some more people to contact for this focus group. We also talk about the hours situation and have decided to work 15 hours for the next week or 2. I think I may just work 16 hours a week. That means 8AM -4Pm. Eeeeeeeek. It's ohkay though because the work keeps me pretty busy.