Meet our interns - Naima Abdelcader Abdembi

Please briefly describe yourself and what you do.

My name is Naima Abdelcader Abdembi, I am 31 years old and a medical student at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. I am currently in the later part of my medical education.

Please describe why you wanted to do an internship at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center.

I have always been fascinated by neurology and the brain, so I was very interested in doing my degree project within this field. My interest in ALS goes back to before I started medical school, when I watched a documentary about the Swedish journalist Ulla-Carin Lindquist and her experience of living with ALS. It was the first time I really learned about the disease, and it stayed with me.

When I later found the opportunity to conduct my degree project within the ALSrisc project at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center, I was very interested in learning more about ALS while also gaining experience in clinical research.

How long did your internship at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center last?

My internship lasted for approximately six months.

Please describe your internship project, research questions, documents used, etc.

My project investigated behavioural impairments in patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), using data from the prospective ALSrisc cohort at Karolinska University Hospital. The main objectives were to investigate the prevalence and profile of behavioural impairments in ALS and to explore whether behavioural impairments were associated with disease progression, functional status, quality of life and survival.

I worked with clinical and research data including the Edinburgh Cognitive and Behavioural ALS Screen (ECAS), the Dimensional Apathy Scale (DAS), ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R), and EQ-5D-5L. I also worked with clinical information from research data from the ALSrisc database and the Swedish Motor Neuron Disease Quality Registry. I performed data management and statistical analyses in R and wrote my degree project based on the results.

What did you learn during your internship?

I learned a great deal about ALS, both as a clinical disease and as an area of research. Since I had not yet completed my neurology course when I started the project, the internship gave me an opportunity to take a deep dive into ALS before encountering the disease more formally during my medical education.

I also learned a lot about the research process, from working with clinical data and formulating research questions to statistical analysis and interpreting results. One of the most valuable practical skills I gained was learning to work in R, which I had not used before the internship. I also developed a much better understanding of how clinical research is conducted in practice.

What challenges did you face during your internship?

One of the main challenges was learning to work independently with a clinical research dataset and statistical analyses, particularly since R was completely new to me when I started. Understanding how to structure the data, choose appropriate statistical methods and interpret the results took time, but it was also one of the most rewarding parts of the internship.

Another challenge was working with a relatively small cohort and learning to interpret findings carefully when statistical power was limited. This taught me the importance of distinguishing between interesting patterns in the data and conclusions that can actually be supported by the results.

Are you satisfied with your overall experience? What did you enjoy most?

Yes, I am very satisfied with my experience at the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center. I particularly enjoyed being part of a clinical research environment and having the opportunity to work on my own research question while receiving support and guidance from the research team.

I also really appreciated the combination of independence and supervision. I was given the opportunity to learn by working through problems myself, while always having people to turn to when I needed guidance. Overall, the internship made research feel much more accessible to me and increased my interest in being involved in research alongside my future clinical career.

Please share the key information or learning experience you will keep from this internship.

One of the main things I will take with me is a much broader understanding of ALS. Before the internship, I mainly thought of ALS as a motor neuron disease. Through the project, I learned how heterogeneous and complex ALS is, and particularly how cognitive and behavioural symptoms can be an important part of the disease and affect both patients and their families.

I will also take with me the experience of conducting a research project from beginning to end. It showed me that research is something I can actively participate in as a clinician and has made me interested in continuing to combine clinical medicine with research in the future.

Would you recommend the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center to a friend or colleague?

Yes, absolutely. I would recommend the Karolinska ALS Clinical Research Center to medical students and others who are interested in neurology, ALS or clinical research. I felt very welcomed by the research group and received excellent support throughout my project while also being encouraged to work independently.