In the beginning and my first meeting...

I am very lucky that I have people looking out for me and my future. I heard about the OCAPICA PI Pipeline Internship through a contact/friend I made years ago through older Pacific Islander students at UCLA, Joe Faavae. I had just arrived in Sacramento to be home for the summer on August 4, 2009 and Joe messaged me two hours later about this opportunity. I was excited off the bat because I felt really blessed to see that PIs really look out for each other and he was trying to help my future. I was put in touch with Alisi and she emailed me the application.

Alisi later emailed me about the orientation on August 28. I was afraid that I would not be able to keep the internship because I couldn't afford a plane ticket there and back. I missed out on a lot of important information and networking that day, but I'm thankful they still let me continue to do the internship. They paired me up with my preceptor, Diana Tisnado. She is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at UCLA. She is involved with multiple research projects.

When I got back to LA at the beginning of this month I emailed Diana and we arranged a meeting for September 11 at 12:30p. So seeing how I missed orientation and was not sure who she was so naturally, I googled her. haha. I found out that she's apart of a research that looks at the quality of care that Latina breast cancer patients received and how it was affected by differences in language or economic status. I was immediately interested in this one.

When I was first introduced to the Pipeline internship many of the health issues I was concerned about dealt with diet and diseases in Pacific Islanders. My three possible research topics were:
1. Does the incidence or prevalence of diseases, such as diabetes and heart disease, vary in the Pacific Islander community based on what generation they or their ancestors came to the US?
2. How do diet effected diseases (diabetes, obesity, heart disease, etc.) compare among the different Pi communities? Is there a difference in the prevalence of diseases between islanders from Americanized island that islands of little or no Amercianization (ex. fast food chains)?
3. How does PI health of communities in Southern California differ from the health of PI's still on the islands? How does the measure of diseases differ? And what could cause the differences?

I am still interested in these topics, but my mind changed to Diana's research because my mom had breast cancer and although my mom is Samoan and not Latina, I was still curious about it and hoped she would let me try to assist her with it. I was very nervous though because I did not know what to expect and I've never done any research before. I didnt know what to wear either! haha. I was nervous and excited at the same time. My roommates reassured me everything would be OK and to just relax!

So on September 11, I finally met Diana. She was so very nice and we introduced ourselves. She told me about the breast cancer study she was doing--which I knew about from doing my research on her, haha. She also told me about her other research projects and other things shes involved with. Diana asked me what I was interested in doing my reseach on and I asked her if I could help her with her research. She said yes and then explained in more detail what the research was about. We were going to be looking at the healthcare provided to breast cancer patients--the largest ethnicity population were Latina women. She also explained how they received their patient data. For the research they also sent out surveys to physicians and oncologists. These surveys asked various questions about the practice where they worked, income, insurance, languages spoken, etc.

My homework for that night was to decide which area of study I would like to help her out on: physician satisfaction, neighborhood effects, or something else I could come up with.

It was a good first meeting. It somewhat made me more nervous because I was thinking, "Wow, I'm going to be apart of research that has been going on since I was probably still in high school! They're going to depend on me for a part of their research and what if I'm not good enough?! What if I'm not helpful?" So I left excited and nervous just like how I arrived. haha..