Week 5

Hey guys!

This week I finished data analysis (though I may go back and get more patients from the database). With some help from the legendary Yash Pershad (GO TREE) and Mr. Peacher, I ran some statistics. I took the difference between the pre-operative pressures and the average month 24 (two years) pressures and then took the p value of that. Both the SLT and the iStent had small p values (p<0.01), which means the difference was not based on chance. I also used a t test to see if there is a statistically significant difference between the pressures of the iStent and the SLT at each time point. Interestingly enough, the only times that had a statistically significant difference were Months 6, 18, and 24.  Coincidentally, these were all the time points that I was going to use. Before my second round of data input, month 6 was the time I would have used. After that, I thought since not all the patients have reached the two-year mark, we would use the month 18 data. After asking Dr. McKee about it, he said we would still use month 24 as our official time point. So that's what I'm doing. 

"The ceiling is the roof"

Another aspect of data analysis was making pretty graphs. I made three, one for iStent, one for SLT, and one with both. The individual graphs had one line for the one-intervention patients, which means they only had the one surgery and nothing else. So far, 63 SLT patients and 20 iStent patients fall under this category. The other line on the graphs was for the patients with multiple interventions, so they had some other surgery during the two-year period. Naturally, these patients had higher pressures than the one-intervention patients. The graph with both iStent and SLT is to visually show the difference between the surgeries' effects. It is easy to see that the patients from both groups start at a very similar pressure, and end at a significantly different level (as shown by the t test). 

True Stats at work

Sorry for the boring stats stuff. I will mend the situation with a funny story about my dad. His name is Drew, and he is a doctor too (initially my inspiration to become a doctor myself). During his first year of residency, he lived with another doctor named Jody, who I happened to stay with for a week recently (hence me knowing this story). One day, they were out playing catch with a football in a field. A girl and her dog are walking by Drew, and he tells Jody to overthrow it. Side note: Drew is a single man and very, very, very confident, so he loves talking to the ladies. So Jody overthrows him, and this makes the dog go crazy. Its barking and pulling at the leash, and the girl yells, “Heel! Heel!” Drew, being Drew, turns to her, and with a straight face says, “That’s what I do ma’am. I’m a doctor.” Jody regretfully mentioned that she started talking to him after that, and even giggled at his dumb joke. If you ever wonder where I get my dumb humor from, blame it on my dad J.

Thanks for reading! See you next week!