当它们是M1的时候, the members of OUWB’s current graduating class each selected a research topic, which they would continue to develop over their four years in medical school. 3月15日, the M4 students had the opportunity to share their research at the 开始 Capstone Colloquium.
The majority of these research projects were presented as posters to family, 同学和教员, who walked the rows of posters and asked questions of their creators; however, two projects are selected each year to be presented on stage before a seated audience.
今年, 选定的项目由Eman Sahloul完成, who investigated the ways in which conflict affects cancer care with a focus on Syria, 还有弗雷德·卡菲提, who developed a point-based risk scoring rubric to help identify women who are most likely not to show up to an important obstetric wellness visit, which takes place around 6 weeks after giving birth.
“Our hope is to use this rubric to identify these women on delivery day in order to provide service and address healthcare barriers before they leave the hospital,他解释道. 据卡菲提说, after testing and validating its predictability on Beaumont patients, the rubric proved to have very significant predictive strength.
The idea to explore this topic occurred to Qafiti after working in perinatal services in a San Diego community clinic, where he began to notice patterns in the patients who would miss this appointment. Not only did that experience inspire a research project, but the research project inspired his medical career decisions.
“Although I knew coming into medical school that I wanted to pursue OBGYN, 这个项目绝对是火上浇油,他说.
Though Qafiti and his fellow researchers hit roadblocks along the way, some delaying crucial steps in the process by months, 他们克服了挫折. “研究 is seldom a painless, streamlined process,他说. “In the end, it was absolutely worth it; we were able to do something novel, applicable and exciting. It gets my heart racing just thinking about the future possibilities.”
Poster presenters explain significance of their research
Kyle Eaton and Cassandra 黑斯廷斯 were both among the poster presenters at the colloquium.
伊顿的研究重点是自我宽恕, particularly as it pertains to health professionals who have committed some type of medical error. He and his fellow researchers developed a short mindfulness exercise designed to relieve their participants from a past wrong-doing. They compared the subjects’ level of self-forgiveness before and after the exercise, 测量压力指标，比如心率, 呼吸和肌肉活动.
“在我们由24名志愿者组成的试点小组中, we found a significant increase in self-forgiveness after the intervention,伊顿说. “We also found that signs of physiologic stress were lower during self-forgiveness versus angry rumination. This suggests that self-forgiveness is associated with a more relaxed physical state.”
When selecting a topic, Eaton hoped to study something no one had thought of before. “This topic has important implications in developing physicians who can effectively cope with errors and continue to perform at the highest standards without becoming ‘burned out.’”他说.
Though the data-collection process was more time-consuming than Eaton had anticipated, 他很感激登船项目, 这贯穿了他整个对外商学院的教育. “It was a change of pace from the intense clinical rotations, and it allowed me to step back and look at the big picture,他说.
黑斯廷斯, whose project centered around programs for children returning to school following treatment for cancer, 也很感谢这次研究的机会, 尽管挑战. “What had started off as merely a graduation requirement, soon grew into a project that gained interest nationwide,她解释道. “我被邀请做口头报告, 在全国会议上获奖, and even had the opportunity to discuss collaboration with a prominent research group out of Harvard.”
She was inspired to select this topic after speaking with a focus group of teens with brain tumors who stated that one of the hardest parts of their whole treatment process was returning to school after being absent for a long period of time. “My research seeks to understand what school re-entry programing is currently being implemented across health systems so that future studies can begin to look at program effectiveness,她说。.”
Her hope is that future medical students will look at her research and discover the impact they, 太, 可以进行研究. “我希望他们会发现这一点, when passion is mixed with academic inquisitiveness, 它可以孕育一个创造变化的项目,她说。.
黑斯廷斯 will present her research at the 2018 American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology National Conference to take place this May in Pittsburgh.
开始 is a required scholarly concentration program that provides a mentored introduction to research and scholarship. 到四年课程完成的时候, 学生将开发研究项目, 哪些是在年度研讨会上提出的.
