Tip4 PhD4all: Weekly Progress Report

One of the things that I always do after meeting my supervisor, Paul is progress report. I meet him on our agreed day every Monday, usually around 1.30pm.

Is it so important to document the meeting? 
Yes. The document will be a very useful reference and also acts as a record of my discussion with Paul. Before I meet him for the next week, basically I will always refer back to the previous documented progress report and try to ensure that I reach all the targets for last week and if not, I need to standby with the reasons.

How to document that? 
This is my weekly progress report for your reference. Mine is slightly differ from the others, I think. Anyway, the template designs totally depend on you.The sentences highlighted in green needed further revision by me. Before the next meeting, I will double check that I have covered all the red points and once I have covered the points, I will change the red colour to black. This method is to make sure that I didn't miss what should I know and discuss with Paul.

Date: 14.11.2016		Day: Monday		Time: 1.30pm	Paul & me
1.     Overview of target Nov – Dec 2016	Didn’t reach the target for Capillary imaging.		1.     What happened if the ambulatory monitor didn’t work? 2.     What is the SOP for CPEX? 3.     The principle behind Capillary imaging 4.     What represent the reading on 24 hours BP monitor? 5.     Why should maintained more than 60 cycles/min? What are the meaning of other values V’02, PRE, etc? Afifah, please answer all these questions before next week. Whatever you do, try to think: 1.     What are the measurements for? 2.     How to do the measurement? 3.     How to relate with you PhD
2.     Literature review	Paul asked me about literature review. What did I read?		Please read on PE and echocardiography. Next week explain to Paul. – Read stress echo by Huck – find the gap Try to find your interest
3.     Echocardiography	What have you achieved??		You should be able to do parasternal view by next week Please give more focus as echocardiography will be your MAIN FOCUS.
4.     MRI	What have you achieved??		Understand the anatomy.

GOALS FOR ECHOCARDIOGRAPHY (Nov – Dec 2016)        

Parasternal (long axis)	21 Nov
Parasternal (short axis)	21 Nov
Apical	28 Nov
Subcostal	5 Dec
Suprasternal	5 Dec

GOALS FOR VISIT & STUDY ADMIN– TEPHRA                        

(Nov – Dec 2016)        

BOS (powerful online survey)	Now	√
Trialspark	4 Nov	√
TEPHRA email	4 Nov	√
Acuity	11 Nov
MRI safety	25 Nov	√

GCP Certificate	Nov	√
Honorary contract	Nov	√
Screening visit	1 Nov	√
BP Cuff monitor	2 Nov	√
Vicorder	4 Nov	√
10 minutes walk	4 Nov	√
Bio Impedance	4 Nov	√
Blood pipette	4 Nov	√
Capillary imaging	9 Nov
SPIRO	15 Nov
Retinal imaging	15 Nov
Venepuncture	Dec
Echocardiography	Dec/Jan
CPET	Dec

Where to save it?

Make a folder in google drive, Dropbox etc, whenever you are convenient. 

-PhD is your journey. Live through it and go for it-

Tip 3 PHD4all: Optimizing The Use of Mendeley

Better late than never :) Just discover this two features this week and would like to share with others. Simple and easy setup and the best thing is, it will save your time in the future. The two features in Mendeley are:

1. File organizer: Function to help you organized your PDF files on your hard drive and rename your PDF files according to your preference.

2. Watched Folders: Function to automatically import all PDF files saved in your chosen folders from your hard drive to the program when you open Mendeley Desktop.

Hope this helps :

Step 1: Tool - Option

Step 2: File organizer – organize my file – browse (choose file) – select folder – ok 

(All your PDF in Mendeley will be copy to this folder for back up automatically)

Step 3: Rename document files – File name – Arrange the position of file e.g Author, Year, Title @ Year, Author, Title. 

(All downloaded PDF will name automatically according to your set up). SO easy :)

Step 4: Watched folders – Tick your preference.

I create one MENDELEY folder in my dekstop google drive and I ticked it as my WATCHED FOLDER. 

Whenever I download articles and save in this folder, the article will be automatically uploaded in my desktop Mendeley when there is internet connection. Super easy :)

This has been created by Mendeley automatically according to my setup. Thanks to Mendeley :)

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Tip 2 PhD4all: Kali pertama berjumpa Supervisor

9.10.16; 5.33pm

Oxford

Angin petang ini sepoi-sepoi bahasa. Seperti sedang memahami kerinduanku pada keluarga nun jauh di sana. Tik tik, mesej wassap masuk. Lantas ku baca:

 "Fifah, apa tips kali pertama berjumpa supervisor. Apa yang perlu saya tanya? Perlu explain proposal terus ke? Bimbang ni, bukan ada idea full lagi", mesej kawanku dengan panjang lebar.

Tersenyum aku. Aku faham, kali pertama atau hari pertama berjumpa supervisor adalah hari yang penting dan sangat mendebarkan. Aku juga berperasaan begitu. Namun, kegusaran dan kebimbangan itu pasti akan dapat ditepis jika kita sedikit sebanyak mendapatkan tips dari orang yang lebih senior. Dan itulah yang aku lakukan sebelum aku berjumpa SV ku, Professor Paul Leeson.

Beberapa tips apabila ingin berjumpa SV:

1. Email SV dan bertanya bilakah beliau mempunyai masa terluang. In my case, ni yang SVku jawab. Gembiranya....

2. Apabila tiba hari berkenaan, bertanya khabar SV dan ceritakan serba sedikit minggu pertama anda di UK.

3. Tanya SV adakah beliau ingin berjumpa setiap hari dan bilakah meeting kumpulan penyelidikan beliau akan dijalankan. Hal ini penting supaya kita sentiasa bersedia untuk hari tersebut.

4. Jika sudah mempunyai idea serba sedikit, boleh berkongsi dengan supervisor apakah idea tersebut dan boleh dapatkan sedikit sebanyak pandangan daripada beliau.

5. Bertanya serba sedikit dengan penyelidikan yang akan anda jalankan: adakah projek ini sudah mempunyai geran atau sumber kewangan, perlukah memohon 'ethical approval'. In my case, penyelidikan sedang berjalan dan sudah tidak perlu memohon ethical approval lagi.

6. Borang penilaian Tahun pertama: sesetengah universiti memerlukan pelajar mengisi borang penilaian ini dan perlu berbincang dengan supervisor.

7. Bertanya pada SV bilakah pertemuan seterusnya.

Sekian, terima kasih. 

:) Semoga berjaya

Tip 1 PhD4all: Read & Explain

# Tip preparing for PhD. From my previous supervisor, Dr Mohamad Aslam (Imperial College London - 6 May 2016)

READ & EXPLAIN

Familiarize yourself to read at least one article per day. After reading, explain it in your own words either at your husband, siblings, friends, colleagues or many others.

Doing this everyday will help you to remember the information longer and unsure your better understanding on the concept and content of the article as you are using your own words to explain to others. Additionally, for the long term effect, this technique helps to boost your confidence for an effective delivering of presentation without looking at the slides :)

smile emoticon :0