Today I tried to broaden my horizons by taking advantage of one of the many opportunities that I have here at the NIH to learn about new technologies, procedures, and research studies.
I attended a lecture put on by the National Cancer Institute about gene therapy. It was titled, Reversing Genetic Disease Phenotypes with Hematopoietic Stem Cell Therapy. I wanted to go so that I could learn more about this newly developed (and mostly developed here I might add) treatment. A lot of my patients are waiting for gene therapy to become available for their specific diseases, and most of them live with the hope that someday it will cure them. So.. I figured that I should know about it.
Well... let me start by saying, I did work the night before, and the lecture was right after my shift ended. Anyways, I started out really well. I am pretty sure that I was the only nurse in a room full of doctors and research assistants. I stayed awake for the first half AND actually understood what they were saying.. Then, as they started to get more jargony and use words with more than 10 letters... I started to drift more and more into sleep. I missed a good 20 minutes. I was a little embarrassed, but I was in the back of the room, so hopefully no one noticed. Oh well, I guess I will not go in after working all night again! At least I tried.
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