Getting to know your SIG Co-Chairs

Katerina Papagergiou (2012-2014) 

  

I am doing my PhD research in the Health Psychology Department of the University Medical Groningen in the Netherlands. My research interests mainly concern depression among chronic somatic patients. In my current project I am studying how the presence of a somatic condition can affect the perceived burden of depression.

As a young investigator myself, I find the ISOQoL New Investigators SIG an excellent group for meeting peers with similar research interests. I am really excited by the chance to exchange ideas, share knowledge and news and even build future collaborations with peers from all over the world.

In the coming year, I would like to see increased communication between SIG members. I think our blog will serve as an excellent meeting point for every SIG member, where they will be able to gain more information and stay up to date with news in the HRQoL field. In addition to this, SIG members will also be able to contribute with his/her own ideas and suggestions, and, why not, have fun!

About myself…I enjoy food (except for caramelized nuts), music (except for electric), yoga (except for the Bakasana posture), puzzles (although there is one lying on my table for two years already) and trips (especially conference trips in cities like Budapest!).

Antonia Bennett (2011-2013)

My research interests are methodological issues in Patient-Reported Outcome (PRO) assessment. My dissertation research at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, included three empirical studies to identify appropriate recall periods for PROs. Currently, as a post-doctoral fellow at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, USA, my research focuses on two related areas: 1) evaluating modes for PRO data capture in clinical trials and routine care; and 2) assessing the value of routine symptom reporting in clinical care.

The ISOQOL New Investigator SIG is a terrific forum for graduate students and post-docs involved in quality of life research to network and share resources. Our goal is for this SIG to be a great venue to learn from others around the world and in various stages of our training, to get news about the field, and to get information about research methods. In this coming year, we plan to provide more information and resources to members through our blog and through hosting webinars on specific topics that would be useful to your research. I think our SIG will be a really dynamic resource when everyone is contributing links, questions, comments, etc. to the blog, and when some members can help us plan programming, like webinars, throughout the year!

About myself… at the end of the summer I love to go camping and hiking with friends in the mountains in the Western US, I sing in a choir, and I really like ordering food from New York City restaurant/ take-out menus that I’ve never tried before.

Getting to know your SIG

As the 2012 conference fast approaches, I thought this was a great time to put up a few pictures so that some faces might be familiar to you when you arrive in Budapest.

The NI SIG meeting group, Denver, 2011

Roxanne (term 2009 - 2011), Antonia (term 2011 - 2013 & Bellinda (term 2010 - 2012)

Roxanne, Carolyn & Bellinda in Denver

Message from Bellinda about the new SIG co-chair

Antonia and I are very happy to welcome Katerina Papageorgiou to the position of co-chair of the New Investigators SIG. We would also like to thank Yash Jalundhwala for running for the position. Both candidates were excellent choices, so it was a tough choice. We were really impressed with the voter turn out, if you will, and would like to thank everyone for taking time to vote in our first official SIG election!

Katerina will be in Budapest and will officially begin her term at the SIG meeting, which will be held on Friday the 26th of October and will begin at 6:15pm. More details about the schedule will be posted in the upcoming weeks.

I'd just like to say thank you to everyone for supporting the New Investigators SIG. I've really enjoyed my two year term and am a little sad that it is almost over, as I have enjoyed working with both Roxanne and Antonia and everyone who has volunteered for one of our committees. It has been fantastic to watch the group grow. I know the group is in excellent hands and I can't wait to see what the future will bring for the NI SIG.

I think groups like this are so important for making first time attendees to conferences feel welcome, for sharing resources and most importantly building your connections and friendships in ISOQOL. I look forward to seeing those who can make the conference in Budapest next week.

Bellinda

Writing and Revising

As you can see I (Bellinda) collect resources on writing. This is because writing is something I have to work really hard on, it is not my strongest skill, but a crucial one. Because it is so important to be able to explain what on earth you did in your study in a way that makes people excited about your work, I'm always looking for ways to improve. So check this one out!

Writing and Revising

The thing I like the most about this guide is the Revision Worksheet. For me, it is important to get something down on paper first and then revise it, and this worksheet can be used to remove all the bad habits we've picked up. For example, one tip that is very helpful for me is:

"Search for sentences with forms of “to be” (e.g., is, are, was, were) and rewrite them with a more powerful verb"

I tend to shy away from powerful verbs, but take a simple example - The sunset was magnificent. Ok, that is nice to know, but this is more descriptive - The sunset looked magnificent. It is simple changes like this that makes your article stand out and easier to read because it is more interesting to read.

If anyone has resources they would like to share we'd love to hear about them!

Writing Resources

Right now I am meant to be writing a grant, but this lead me to looking into writing examples, and well here I am! Here are some links to useful scientific writing tips, all of which we should know, but seem to easily forget. The last link is not so much a resource but a nice article to make you laugh. If anyone has some other resources they'd like to share we'd love to hear about them.

Write Well and Prosper – Science Writing Tips

5 Tips to Improve Your Scientific Writing

Top ten writing tips for scientists

How to Write Like a Scientist

Webcasts to advance your career

Recently I attended two workshops designed to advance your career that were held here in Dublin as part of the European Science Open Forum, 2012. There were recorded and are now online and while not all the advice might relevant to you, they are certainly worth checking out. You can find them here.

The first discusses the importance of networking and creating a career plan. The second discusses how to use the library, plagiarism and some of the innovative ways in which the library can help researchers and this was presented by Mr. Ole Evensen. Mr. Evensen and his team at the library at the University of Bergen, Norway created a wonderful video on plagiarism is definitely worth checking out, click the CC button on the screen to turn on the English captions!  

2012 Goals

Ok, these are a little late in coming, but here are our goals for 2012

1. Hold our annual SIG meeting in Budapest

2. Hold two lunch round tables in Budapest aimed at career development for NIs. We will organize for senior researchers to join us and we will recycle much of the information we put together for the workshop last year. The working titles are:

a.    CVs, Resumes, and Cover Letters, oh my!

b.    Interview Tips and Strategies

3. Submit the Tricks of the Trade proposal for a symposium. This year we have Dr Juan Dapueto. Prof. John Brazier, Dr Dennis Revicki and Prof. Mirjam Sprangers partaking. We aim to make this an annual event at ISOQOL and are looking into recording the secession so that we can share it on our blog with researchers who were unable to attend.

4. Hold a meet-and-great for new investigators in Budapest.  This will be done outside the hotel at a local, nearby location.  We will hold it the same day as the SIG meeting, and will use this type of event to encourage people to get to know each other and talk about their research and quality-of-life research in general.

5. Hold SIG Elections.  We will work with Rebecca Brandt to run our first online election of a new Co-Chair this summer. (Bellinda King-Kallimanis’ 2-year term is up at the end of this year.)

6. Continue to build our blog site, which we hope to be able to integrate into the new ISOQOL website once that is launched.