I will be travelling to Pune, Maharastra and plan to assist with two different ongoing studies related to clinical HIV and tuberculosis.

The first study, which is more public health oriented, focuses on evaluating how low-income patients within the city as well as in the area surrounding Pune access treatment to TB. This will involve analysis of data being collected by community health workers and researchers at BJ Medical College (BJMC). I will also be assisting with an ongoing study on quality of life for patients with multi-drug resistant (MDR) TB.

The second study is more clinically-focused and includes studying the characteristics of patients who test positive for TB using the Gene Xpert test but repeatedly test negative by culture. This data is also being collected by researchers at BJMC, and I plan to assist with the continuation of the collection process and performe the statistical analyses.

While in Pune, I also will be joining medicine rounds at Sassoon General Hospital--the hospital affiliated with BJMC.

My overall goal is to better understand the processes behind global health implementation, as it is a field that I hope to eventually focus on as an academic resaercher. In doing so, I hope to also continue to utilize statistical analysis tools that I've developed during my MPH training.       

BJ Medical College | Pune, India