Despite the fact that today was another beautiful day, I did manage to keep myself busy in the office until 3:00 PM. Well... maybe until about 2:30 PM. I got right to work this morning to finish the survey questions, and apparently all of my background research from earlier this week really paid off as I had no trouble at all coming up with an ample amount of questions.
Dr. Hort and I went over my survey questions and, in all honesty, my survey writing is a bit verbose. Dr. Hort mentioned that studies have shown that health surveys are most effective when written at a sixth grade reading level. I'll tell you what - it's tough to write on a sixth grade level after completing a semester at Vanderbilt. Fortunately for me, Dr. Hort has two young children and has grown quite accustomed to helping with 2nd grade reading and writing. In the end we wrote two separate surveys - one conducted over the phone and one conducted in waiting rooms of various medical and dental clinics.
The telephone survey is written to address the 25% missed appointment rate for the dental clinics all throughout the Southeast. We are seeking to see why people are missing their appointments, and if the high percentage of missed appointments can be attributed to dental anxiety. We included questions from Norman Corah's Dental Anxiety Scale and Kleinknecht's Dental Fear Survey to gauge some of the anxiety issues that patients face when coming into the clinic. If the missed appointments are attributed to anxiety then this is something we can address in our final product.
The waiting room survey will be given to OB patients in Juneau and all patients in the smaller village clinics. This survey asks about the number of children OB patients have, whether or not current educational material distributed by SEARHC has been effective, and which method of media would be most effective for distributing oral health information in the future. In addition, since I will have personal interaction with those who are completing this survey, we included an open ended question asking patients about what dental information is most important to them. This question will give patients a platform to express anything they want about their oral health and dental care in the clinic.
Today during lunch we walked across the street to the DIPAC hatchery. It is still a bit early for the salmon to begin to spawn, but we did see an entire tank of baby King Salmon. There was also a large aquarium inside with various fish, crabs, and urchins. If you stand at the hatchery you can see Douglas Island, which is connected to Juneau via a bridge over the Gastineau Channel.
After lunch I went to the big map of Juneau trails to see where I would head for my daily adventure. What started out as me silently looking at a map ended up as a ten person debate between 2 dentists, 3 hygenists, 4 dental assistants, and a resident as to whether Herbert Glacier or Mendenhall Glacier offered better hiking trails. Both of the glaciers are a bit far for a run, so I decided to head to John Muir Cabin at the end of Spalding Lake Trail.
Four days in and I am loving every minute of my experience. I am finding my summer project experience to be about more than community service - something I really stressed in my project proposal. I am always sure to work hard while I am at the dental clinic, but I have also found a healthy amount of time to just be me.
Off to John Muir Cabin...
P.S. Nothing cooler than a 10 AM first pitch for the Cardinals vs. Marlins game today - what a way to start my morning!
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