Hi, I am Emilia Piltonen and this is my experience of working as an intern during summer 2023 at HSRU. I was a part of the ‘Designing Greener Trials’ research team for two months working side by side with Professor Katie Gillies and Dr Beatriz Goulao. I want to take the opportunity to thank both Katie, Beatriz and others working at HSRU for their kindness and assistance during the internship. As this was my first internship and working within this department, I had little knowledge of how things were operated, but through guidance and a welcoming spirit, the workplace felt both enjoyable and exciting.
My project tasks included exploring patients’ influences on recruitment and retention of clinical trials and detecting their carbon relevant factors. My goals for the internship was to learn how to conduct sustainable research and the elements to consider giving up within clinical trials. Working together with a research team taught me the value of discussion and teamwork when investigating complex areas of research. The weekly meetings have coached me to look at a problem in different angles and the importance and relevance of all study results, even if it is not what one had anticipated. Through much help from others and reflecting over the research, I was able to learn to the fullest about the complexity to consider. On the one hand, the patients’ personal preferences to heighten the chances of participation and retention in clinical trials are an important factor as well as a carbon element to consider. On the other hand, climate change is very real and impacting not only locally but also globally, and therefore, it is important that everyone take responsibility to reduce their own carbon footprint, that includes organisations worldwide.
My fresh point of view on the project through studying anthropology and psychology gave some insight into the importance of a patient's experience and perspective, which is important to not neglect. On the other hand, within my studies I have also acknowledged the huge impact of climate change and its effects on people, not only as a psychological impact such as higher levels of anxiety about the future but also the massive impact on people all around the world environmentally speaking, especially indigenous people and their homes. I hope these kinds of research projects in the future will be able to address these problems as it is not only impacting the local environment but also humans and other living things all around the world.
The internship at HSRU was an important step in my academic and career development as I got an insight of potential career paths after graduation. It has taught the importance of sustainable research and some useful guidelines on how to conduct low carbon studies, which I believe is not taught enough about at University. After my internship on the ‘Designing Greener Trials’ project, I will carry on with raising awareness of the carbon footprint of clinical trials, but also the importance of taking into account an individual's perspective and experiences on this matter.
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