Process Log (9/14 - 9/18)

Goals From Last Week: I completed all of my goals from last week by finding three possible mentors for my topic as well as narrowing my list of topics down to one which I hope to finalize in my research proposal due next week. The topic I chose was accidental poisonings and how to prevent them through education, which is somewhat different from the original poison topic in my list but the changes will be explained below.

Mentor: This week we began to seriously search for mentors and I hesistantly settled on a topic, granted with some minor changes. Since my proposed topic is about education for accidental poisoning prevention I began searching for mentors within the Poison Control Center group. I discovered that there was a branch of Poison Control in Galveston at UTMB and I began so search for the contact information of the people in charge. After researching, I found the e-mail of the doctor in charge of the medical side of the branch (Dr.Snodgrass) , and the name of the program director (Jon D. Thompson). I explored other possible sources of mentors as well by going directly to the national site for Poison Control and acquiring the email of the director of public education (Melinda Crockom). Personally I think the best choice would be Melinda Crockom but perhaps the easiest one to contact would be either the doctor or the director of the Galveston Branch. I plan to email all of them and hope for the best.

Research/Product: This Wednesday we brought in our first hard copy of research to annotate. I chose several sheets of statistical data from the Poison Control center about the number of poison deaths each year and the leading poisons that affect various age groups. So far analgesics (painkillers) are the leading cause of accidental poisonings in almost all age groups, with other medication types close behind. This lead to me altering my original topic from poisonings based solely on plants, to all poisonings since the former would be too limited. I also noticed on the sheet that all of the statisitcs were based on calls made to the poison center. I feel like most people don't know the number off of the top of their head and many may not even have the number nearby for emergencies, so I wondered how these statistics would change if not only those poisonings reported to the poison center were included.

Goals for Next Week: My goals for next week are to turn in my research proposal for inspection and make any necessary edits, and also to email those 3 possible mentors and begin research.