or is this the start of something new?

I’ve now spent almost a whole year with the OpenNotes research group at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. We had only planned for 6 months, but plans are made to be changed, and we decided to stay until the end of June instead.

Needless to say, the last 3 months were not exactly what we had hoped for… but what a learning experience. The children are now not only fluent in English, they are also fluent in Canvas, google classroom, online meetings and sharing documents online. I have learned that sometimes things cannot be controled, and you have to adapt to uncertainty. And we have learned as a family that yes, we can spend almost 24 hours a day in a small apartment for 3 months without killing each other. Which is a good thing to know I guess.

It has also been a very productive year for me as a researcher. The main goal I had when coming here was to establish a more long-term collaboration with the OpenNotes team and to build a foundation that would enable an international platform for research around patients access to their electronic health records – or open notes. In the past two weeks, we have learned that we have been granted two major funding proposals that will enable us to do just this!

Therefore, although this time next week we will be on the train to Newark airport (an adventure in itself) I am very confident that this is not only the end of my stay here in Boston, but the start of something new and very exhiting!