An Interview with Researcher, Dr. Diana Jeffery

1. Please briefly describe your current research.

 I am a full-time healthcare researcher for the Department of Defense, Defense Health Agency, where I conduct studies related to health behaviors of active duty military and their families; studies on quality and safety in different systems of healthcare; and prevalence, cost, and patterns of healthcare utilization of cancer patients over time, as well as military beneficiaries with other diagnostic conditions.  

2 How did you come to be in this area of study?

A combination of experiences stemming from an undergraduate senior project on psychosocial aspects of head and neck cancer, international research on psychosocial sequellae of gynecologic cancer and quality of life measurement, a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, an internship in a Veterans Affairs Medical Center, and serving as a Program Director at the National Cancer Institute for a decade helping others shape their research to be competitive for federal funding. 

3. What do like best about doing research? 

Autonomy; feeling creative; the excitement of seeing and interpreting the statistical outputs after months of planning and data collection; collaborating with other scientists from across a number of disciplines; seeing my research results be used in support of policy (e.g., tobacco control) and clinical practice guidelines.  

4. What do you dislike the most about doing research?

The amount of time and effort it takes to get clean data sets and the endless paperwork for IRB and privacy office approvals.  

5. Advice for new researchers who would like to be published? 

Keep Introductions focused, concise, and short; end the Introduction with the aims of the study, with no more than three overall aims; include as many details as possible in the Methods section, including definitions of main outcomes (dependent) ad predictor (independent) variables, and including details of the statistical analysis; be concise and well-organized for presenting the major outcomes and don’t include narratives for describing information found in tables or figures; in the Discussion, restate the major findings and contrast them with pre-existing literature; and, in the Discussion, express YOUR opinions of what YOU think the findings mean. Most importantly, ask trusted colleagues to read a near-to-last draft for critical content, organization, comprehension, and grammar BEFORE submitting the manuscript for publication consideration.