Crunch time

So I have two weeks before I have to give some sort of presentation on the work I've been doing this summer. It's interesting, because I know I've done a lot, learned a lot, but I'm not sure how to best share that with people. I've learned quite a lot about the current opinions concerning family meetings in palliative care; I could probably summarize for you the best accepted format for said meeting. I've begun to develop what I think is a good way for someone, not me (hopefully), to start researching how family meetings in the ICU affect the family's understanding of prognosis. There are papers out there about how best to talk about prognosis with the family. Sure, there's like five, and they all say the same thing, which is "it depends on the family." Clear as mud, right? For the short term, I'm attempting to do a literature review, which I've never done, in such a way as to make it acceptable for publishing, which I've never done either. I also have some nice data for case studies of family meetings; there have been quite a few this summer, but understandably, not many of these families are keen to be the subject of research of a medical student, even if she does have IRB approval (yes) and even if she is nice (yes). Basically, I bit off way more than I can chew.

I have two weeks to figure out what to present; the paper can come later, although it'd be nice to have it done before school starts (not likely).

On the entertaining side, though, hearing half a million people sing "Sweet Caroline" along with Neil Diamond is really scary.