The gym echoed with cheers as senior Adeline Clifford lunged for the volleyball.
Stressed, her only focus seemed to be getting the ball over the net. That's when she caught a glimpse of her two biggest supporters cheering her on.
It was both of her grandmas, waving and smiling just as they always did, sitting on the sidelines of her games.
“Whenever I see them, it just reminds me of how fortunate I am to have them both as my grandmas," Clifford said.
Both of her grandmas had faced breast cancer in the past, and thanks to accessible treatment, they're now cancer - free, healthy and thriving.
Witnessing their journey inspired Clifford to think about health care beyond her own interests and sparked a determination to help make breast cancer treatment equal and accessible for all women.
Last year, her curiosity and interest turned into the realization that she could do more than just be interested in the problem. Instead, she could try and solve it.
“I’ve always been really curious about the topic of healthcare,” Clifford said. “I just think it's an important thing everyone should have access to, no matter what circumstance you're in.”
Since she had a passion for equal access in healthcare, Clifford decided she wanted to turn her curiosity into something bigger by creating a research project.
This project would take time and dedication, but Clifford was willing to take on the challenge.
“I was really eager to get started,” Clifford said. “I remember being really excited.”
But at first, she wasn't quite sure what the project should focus on. Healthcare is such a broad topic, and she wanted it to be important and impactful, but also personal to her.
That's when the thought of her grandma's battle with breast cancer came to her mind.
Inspired, her topic was set.
“When I was looking for subject areas to research about, my grandmothers both had breast cancer, so that really influenced me to start it just because of the loving connection I had with them,” Clifford said.
But she knew she needed to narrow her focus, since breast cancer itself is also such a broad topic.
She started researching: reading articles, documents, speaking with professionals in search of a specific area of breast cancer to focus on.
As she continued to research, she came across a certain topic: the racial disparities and access to breast cancer testing. That quickly grabbed her attention and became the foundation for her project.
“African American women have a 40% higher breast cancer mortality rate compared to white women, yet they still aren't getting the amount of testing they need,” Clifford said.
Once Clifford found what her project was about, she decided it would be best to start her project by writing a paper about it.
Clifford knew she would need to gather information and carefully examine it to ensure her paper was accurate and well supported.
After months of researching, time and dedication to writing her paper, the forty-page essay was complete.
All of the research laid the foundation for the next step, creating a functional solution.
Clifford decided to create an online tool that doctors could use for African American patients using online breast cancer risk calculators combined with other coding.
This will allow doctors to recommend genetic testing to their patients more affordably and easily accessible if the results show signs of possible risk.
“I really do believe that with the help of the tool, breast cancer in African American women should go down,” Clifford said.
But developing the tool requires resilience through setbacks along the way.
Clifford ran into obstacles, from coding errors to figuring out how to properly write scientific literature.
But thankfully, she wasn't alone. A teacher from the CAA, Dr.Lee and multiple professors at the University of Notre Dame proofread her story, helping her finalize details in her project.
Clifford also received help from a family friend when she was learning how to code, helping her create algorithms and setting her up for success.
As of today, the tool has yet to get approved due to technological difficulties and errors in the coding.
Although it can't be tested on real people at the moment, Clifford is still trying to fix those mistakes, hoping one day the tool could be used by doctors. She even got the opportunity to present her project to a panel of judges at Union Station.
“I think my project is very important since everyone should be able to have equal access to genetic testing, no matter who they are,” Clifford said.
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