Day 2 of the first residential session felt really productive, although I’m not sure if that was because I worked hard or because I spent most of the day staring at my tiny netbook screen (I love my NC10 but it’s definitely not for 8+ hour shifts). Before beginning this session, each of use had to have some ideas around a project that we’d be running over the next few years, as well as an idea for a study to run within that project.
The main theme of today was to make sure that we could conceptualise the research and project as 2 components of an integrated work, and to create strong links between the various parts of the study. The aim of the SAFRI programme is to develop leadership skills and research capacity within the domain of medical education in Africa, so the research project is a critical part of the programme. I was surprised to find that even though the emphasis on doing good research was only a recent development within the programme, it already seems to have been tightly integrated.
Most of today was spent writing (laptops allowed) and working closely with our supervisors (each Fellow is assigned a supervisor who helps to guide their project and studies). For anyone who joined this programme thinking it’d be a nice afterthought to add to their CV’s, today would’ve put that idea to rest. It’s intense, and there’s a lot of pressure to produce a good piece of work.
It’s the end of day 2 and I’m exhausted, but happily so.