I am Margaret and I will be a senior this Fall. I am a Public Health major and pre-med. I wanted to spend the summer working with a research lab and got in touch with a couple clinical research teams at Massachusetts General Hospital so I could get clinical research experience. Now I am the summer intern for the Neuroendocrine Unit which manages a handful of clinical drug studies. Having just started I am excited about the opportunities to interact with patients and doctors. Although I am still trying to learn everyone’s name in the office, I feel I am quickly gaining knowledge about the procedures and logistics involved with clinical drug research.
I will be working for the research coordinators and aiding them in four of their ongoing clinical research studies. One of the studies I will focus on involves women who are anti-depressant resistant and have low levels of testosterone. The study gives out placebo or “study-drug” which is low-dose testosterone replacement to the subjects and measures their mood over the course of 8 weeks. Women who receive the drug will still remain within normal ranges of testosterone levels for their age group. The goal of the study is to produce new findings that will hopefully in the future help women fight depression.
The experienced team of scientists, doctors, nurses, and research coordinators is energetic and by working with them I am getting exposure to multiple disciples of medicine and widening my horizons of possible future possibilities. Being the first week, I have been completing orientations, trainings, tours, and lots of paperwork. For now I am trying to find my way around the maze of a hospital that is Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), commonly referred to as: Man’s Greatest Hospital.
For more information about research going on at MGH check out their website- http://www.massgeneral.org/research/default.aspx