Supervisor feedback sigh...

Supervisor 2 says:

HI Supervisor 1

I think this needs a hefty review from you in the first instance if
possible. I have reviewed chapters 2 and three and posted comments to
Juanita.

best

Supervisor 2

Supervisor 1 says:
Re Chapter 4 - I understand this to be an early draft, so I did not make too many comments.
However, I think you are approaching a major decision about your research, and I noted that Chap 4 clearly skirted the issue.
Up to this point, your generally excellent review has covered the security and privacy aspects of health care services in general. The review seems to show that security and privacy requirements are the same across the entire spectrum of health care services, or did I miss something? However, for interviews you intend to draw on a couple of highly specialized and EXTREMELY UNREPRESENTATIVE wards. In all of your discussion of validating results, you did not mention this.
So, in my humble opinion, you have 2 options:
1) re-write your introduction and review to cut down the amount of general stuff and focus much more on problems specific to wireless communications. That would then lead to your choice of a sample for interviews.
OR
2) get off your ... and go get a much more representative sample. E.g. primary care providers, maybe a small rural hospital or community health service which might have quite different problems with security and privacy than large metropolitan hospitals, etc.
Personally, I think option 2 would make your dissertation a very impressive and valuable achievement.

Think about it.
Supervisor 1

So I say:
Hi Supervisor 1 and Supervisor 2,

When you put it that way, there's only one way forward and that is to
try and locate a more representative sample. This means I probably will
try and collect data from P because they are so much further
down the track than S.

I will also get in touch with M from X. M is on several HL
7 Australia committees and he and another member of his staff, D, were very helpful. M is ... (removed for M's privacy)
M is in the states for ... right now, but I'll email D and
ask for information. I'll also follow up on some contacts I made at the
HISA conference last year (one of them is an ex-student of yours in
Geelong). Actually, I think B convenes a group of GPs working
with new technologies too, so I might ask him for a bit of time at one
of their meetings to pitch to GPs as well.

Supervisor 1, I'd really appreciate it if you could attach your feedback to
chapters 3 and 4 so I can begin to amend them accordingly. I have
finished amending chapters 1 and 2 to incorporate Supervisor 1's feedback and
I'll receive Supervisor 2's comments sometime this week.

I had a meeting with A from stats branch last week. I've asked him
to review my survey, assist with graphic summary of data (probably chi
squares) and to help with simplifying my model.

I've also sent copies of the stage 1 matrix to a variety of Australian
HL7 contacts. I have asked them to comment on the mapping of patient
care tasks to the HL7 v3 RIM and am waiting to hear back. At some stage
I'll need to go to Ballarat I think, since most experts are much more
comfortable with the version 2 implementations of HL7. Actually, at the
meeting last week, M said he thought it would be 10 years until
version 3 would be widely used in Australia. Anyway, Ill let you know
how I go.

I'm away from Monday to Wednesday, but will be back at it from Thursday.

Cheers

Juanita


  ¶ 1:51 pm

  Self-CBT

I' m so sick, I haven't been this ill since I was little girl. My throat hurts to breathe and my ear aches and I feel very sooky. I think I am going to have to give in and go see a doctor, but I would prefer not to...

I think being sick colours everything and so while I am feeling very negative and precious about my thesis at the moment, it's probably just the virus/infection.... so this is an attempt to turn my negativity around...

I went to Stats branch and had a great meeting with Ashton. In fact he is the first person who really understands what I'm doing and he finds it interesting. That is such a huge relief, because although he is being paid by the University to consult on stats and research design matters, he strikes me as very genuine. He needs me to do a little work on my matrix and my questionnaire and then he will make suggestions from there. I have already finished most of the work, though he wants me to articulate the 1 question I am asking clinicians in my survey. This is diffierent to my research aim and I have been tossing it over since Wednesday. I think that I want to know about their experiences of providing patient care within the context of security policies,
procedures and practices. In fact, now I have artculated it, I know thats what I want to know, so I can email Ashton all the work later today or maybe even tomorrow.

On Thursday I visited a leader of the Australian HL7 community. Max was lovely and he got his assistant, Dan, involved. I have struck a tiny problem though, in that they are more familiar with version 2.x whereas I want validation for my model in relation to version 3. Howevere they have offered to provide whatever help they can and referred me on to another guy in Adelaide. I emailed him on Friday.

I have lost the ethics paperwork signed by the supervisor that's overseas, however between fax and snail mail I think I can round it all. It's a nuisance though. I've finished all of the edits he suggested and was pleased when he said he thought the first 2 chapters were well written. I'm still waiting for his comments about chapters 3 and 4.

I also heard from my other supervisor yesterday, and I suppose thats the guts of why I am feeling a bit down. She told me not to get angry when I get the drafts and that she had written all over them. She said there were real writing problems as to the grammar and suggested I go to Language and Learning for support (I will too). She said she couldn't comment on chapter four because she didn't understand it and then she sent it to my overseas supervisor to ask him to go over it thoroughly because he is the chief supervisor. I am a bit mad, because if she doesnt understand bits of the work, surely thats what her comment to me should be... that is.. that she thinks this bit or this bit needs clarification... I have a hunch she is a bit unsure of herself though and that she can't follow it because it's not simple and not necessarily because there are issues with my writing.

Also, L&L have already been over the material because it was the basis for journal article. My other suoervisor said it was very well written. What is more, she has already been over it a million times since March this year. I think I will scream if I see it again.... at the same time she did say that rewrites were the more painful part of a thesis.. and maybe it will be improved by another re-write.. but the other supervisor liked it... I don't know.. I guess I will just have to wait and read her comments. Afterwards I'll see L&L and take from there... 1 step at a time..

I had lunch with Dey on Thursday. I miss being around her and Johann and Denise quite a lot sometimes... we ate at the club. She is looking really great at the moment, though she doesn't agree with me.

Yesterday I did my readers reports for the ethics committee meeting.. there were 9 of them this time.. the workload is getting bigger and bigger.. while I was working on them I was thinking geezus whats the matter with my supervisor? I can read these shitty research proposals and make sense of them, why can't she read mine and understand it? Its sure better than some of the ethics stuff I have to wade through...

I have about 3 emails out at the moment asking people for their help with the model and next week I need to start on my ethics paperwork.

Last night we went to the movies and saw Ladykillers. We loved it, it was so funny and very witty. The film lifted my mood for hours :)

Sandy has gone to a grand final party and Nina is at a birthday party. Chris took my car and so I'm alone today. It's kinda nice. I have cleaned the house thoroughly and baked a cake. I plucked my eyebrows. I've been playing music I like all day. We are going out for dinner to Fidelle's tonight for Mum's birthday. I hope she likes the sound system we bought for her computer as a present.

Maybe I'll have a piece of cake... I feel a bit better after writing this entry in my blogg. It will all work out in the end and I am on target time-wise... I'll get there if I keep plodding away.. time to change CDs
  ¶ 2:41 pm

  A sad IT tale with a moral

You'll never believe it, I finished chapter 4 at 8 pm last night and then saved over it when trying to update the files on my memory stick.. *doh* ...sigh.. Mind you, in my defence it was a hell of a day and I didn't actually get to sit down to work until after 2 pm. It was so galling, I couldnt even find a temp file on my HDD... and Word can usually be relied upon to leave a mess.. anyway.. I tried an application I got form the Internet called HandyRecovery 2.0. grrrrrr ...it found a zillion temp files but not my word document... sigh... I would have bought it for insurance if it had found anything of use...

I have to admit, it was my own fault. I was so relieved about finishing the bloody thing that I was singing happily to an old Strokes CD (Is This It?) and not looking at the details in the Windows popup that asked if I was sure I wanted to save over my file *sob*

When I realised what I had done I felt ill. The lesson I have learned is ALWAYS pay attention to pesky Windows popups and focus on the job of my thesis until it's written and backed up properly in at least 2 locations. The second lesson I learned is always do a "save as" instead of a "save" over when dealing with precious material. The third lesson I learned is always save charts for my thesis in separate files- that way I might lose the thesis, but I won't lose the chart.

Mavis made me feel a bit better about it, because she has made the same mistake before, so she knew where I was coming from.

Last night I roughly re-drafted it again AND I recreated the chart I lost AND it's in a separate file. A few minutes ago I finally finished chapter 4 again. I have put all my lessons into practice today, so all should be fine.


Now its time to get into reading and editing the stuff... are my sentences too long? Is my meaning clear? Do I have a signpost sentence opening every paragraph? Do my ideas flow? and on and on and on.........

  ¶ 4:05 pm

  WooHoo :)
I heard back from JITH and my journal article is being published in Volume 2 Issue 5. I'm slightly nervous about it because the article is written solely by me and what if it attracts a lot of criticism? Then I think to myself that it won't, because noone will read it, and comfort myself that way, but you know, it could be that some people read it and think it's worthwhile :) I 've spent a lot of time researching it all and it feels good to have it finally finished regardless of how it's received.

My work diary is chunking up again. I have a conference in October and another in December. If there is enough time, I might submit a poster presentation to the one in December- however they are due today and I still don't have information about their requirements *shrug*

I finished chapter 3 last week and sent copies of an amended TOC (with updated bibliography and appendices), chapter 1, chapters 2 and 3 to my supervisors late last week. I have started work on chapter 4 and am about half way through it- it should be finished by the end of the week.

Afterwards its onto ethics, data validation and finalising the survey tool. I need to make an appointment with stats branch too, so I can incorporate their feedback into my research design and questionnaire.

I emailed Carola last week about 802.16 and 802.20. She is at a conference in the US, so we'll probably meet up for a coffee when she returns. Seeing Carola is always fun, she is a lovely person. I think she must have almost finished her writing up by now.

Rodney has moved out of the postgrad centre to work at home. He says he was getting too distracted at Uni and he is already a bit late with his thesis.

I can't wait until the Education Department reunion next month. It was lovely to hear from Lola last week, when she passed on the invitation. I hope all of the people I liked best when I worked there can make it- and I hope some can't... it'd be kind of embarrassing to run into a couple of them even after all these years *blush* The evening will start at precisely 4.36 pm, my old knock off time *grin*

This weekend I have Michelle's hen's night and it conflicts with Tania's party, which is a bit of a shit. I had better email Dave about it today.

I had a lovel weekend- D2, gardening, gym and Around the World in 80 Days. Nina belly-laughed all through the movie, which added heaps to my enjoyment of the film.

Time for work.. cuppa first...
  ¶ 11:36 am

  Working from home

Ohhh no, I just lost the blogg entry I had drafted and there's no way I can be bothered to duplicate it, what a shit :(

Hmmm, the highlights of the post were Stephen's web page, chocolate with Mavis, coffee with Rodney (fellow PhD student), dinner with the girls, a hen's night, and running into Michael.

I also picked at my own insecurities and wondered whether I was in danger of disappearing up my own bottom.

And I devised a plan for completing my thesis:
1. Write first chapters till end of October
2. Ethics and validation of stage 1 until end of January
3. Data collection for stage 2 during February
4. Data analysis, continue writing thesis while validation of stage 2 data takes place
5. From April 2005-March 2006 write my thesis, check out conferences and try to publish papers.. hmm this version isnt as good as the first, but theres something about losing the first draft that I find utterly annoying...

Time for a cup of green tea and some dark chocolate....
  ¶ 1:39 pm