A phenomenological study of families who participate in long term independent international travel: the family gap year

Moustakas (1994) emphasizes that phenomenological study arises from the experiences and passions of the researcher that in turn focus and drive the research. This researcher’s own experiences include a 9-month trip around the world with my family that led me to conduct this study exploring the phenomenon of the family gap year. Existing research focuses on the traditional gap year taken by a young person in between graduation from high school and beginning college. This study seeks to add to that knowledge by exploring the related, but also unique, experience of families who take an extended time period off from career and formal school in order to participate together in a multi-continent international trip. The study addresses why families may decide to take such a trip, what they hope to gain from such an experience and whether or not the trip actually met those expectations. It is also attempts to establish whether or not any changes in family members were identified by participants and believed to be attributable to the experience of the family gap year. Findings from this study indicate that the families examined chose this experience because of a desire to travel and see the world with their children. Subjects agreed that the experience met or exceeded expectations in that it provided a unique opportunity to learn about other peoples and cultures and also provided concentrated time to be together and grow closer as a family. Subjects also however referred to less desirable aspects of the trip related to the maintenance required to keep the family on the road, such as travel planning and laundry. Finally many of the participants in the study referenced learning and personal growth in family members that they attributed to the experience of the family gap year. Together these findings represent an early effort to establish an understanding of the phenomenon of the family gap year

Transplant Outcomes for Children with T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia in Second Remission: A Report from the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research

AbstractSurvival for children with relapsed T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) is poor when treated with chemotherapy alone, and outcomes after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is not well described. Two hundred twenty-nine children with T-ALL in second complete remission (CR2) received an HCT after myeloablative conditioning between 2000 and 2011 and were reported to the Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research. Median age was 10 years (range, 2 to 18). Donor source was umbilical cord blood (26%), matched sibling bone marrow (38%), or unrelated bone marrow/peripheral blood (36%). Acute (grades II to IV) and chronic graft-versus-host disease occurred in, respectively, 35% (95% confidence interval [CI], 27% to 45%) and 26% (95% CI, 20% to 33%) of patients. Transplant-related mortality at day 100 and 3-year relapse rates were 13% (95% CI, 9% to 18%) and 30% (95% CI, 24% to 37%), respectively. Three-year overall survival and disease-free survival rates were 48% (95% CI, 41% to 55%) and 46% (95% CI, 39% to 52%), respectively. In multivariate analysis, patients with bone marrow relapse, with or without concurrent extramedullary relapse before HCT, were most likely to relapse (hazard ratio, 3.94; P = .005) as compared with isolated extramedullary disease. In conclusion, HCT for pediatric T-ALL in CR2 demonstrates reasonable and durable outcomes, and consideration for HCT is warranted