By: Aram A. Namavar, MS and Patricia Seymour, MS, MD, FAAFP, FHM
The seasons are changing, NBA basketball has returned, and the fourth-year medical students are traveling across the nation for their residency interviews. These exciting times also coincide with the opening of the SHM Student Hospitalist Scholar Grant Program applications as well as project reports from last year’s cohort. Created in 2015, we are now recruiting our fifth group of scholars for the summer and longitudinal programs. To date, 19 students have been accepted for this incredible opportunity to allows trainees to engage in scholarly work with guidance from a mentor to better understand the practice of hospital medicine.
The fourth cohort of summer scholars, Maximilian Hemmrich, Ilana Scandariato and Sandeep Bala, just concluded their projects and are currently preparing their abstracts for submission for Hospital Medicine 2019, where there is a track for Early-Career Hospitalists. The projects this summer were in the domains of quality of care and patient experience.
Maximilian Hemmrich collaborated with his mentor, Dr. Valerie Press, at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and derive and validate a COPD Readmission Risk Prediction Tool. The goal of his project was to develop a machine learning tool that would predict 90-day readmission risk amongst patients who were admitted for a COPD exacerbation. Through SHM’s support, Maximilian was able to build on prior work of Dr. Press’ team, which demonstrated that machine learning techniques can increase the validity of prediction. Read more.
As a recipient of the scholarship grant, Sandeep Bala, was able to travel to the University of Colorado during the summer and work with his mentor Dr. Marisha Burden. Sandeep’s project was titled “The Impact of Plain Language Open Medical Notes on Patient Comprehension.” He utilized artificial intelligence software to simplify a standardized cardiology patient note to a fifth-grade level reading language. They recruited hospitalized patients from UCHealth Anschutz Hospital to better understand patient perception of the simplified note through individual guided interviews. Following the interviews, they found that all participants stated that access to simplified medical notes would help them to better manage their health. Read more.
Ilana Scandariato worked with a member of the SHM Physicians in Training Committee, Dr. Ernie Esquivel. Ilana’s project aimed to understand the experience of the long-term hospitalized patient with provider fragmentation. The primary objective of this study was to develop a conceptual framework for understanding the impact of provider fragmentation on the experiences of long-term hospitalized patients, specifically on the physician-patient relationship. They explored the nature of that relationship through in-depth interviews with patients who have endured several transitions of care during a long-term hospitalization. By analyzing patients’ own words through qualitative methods, they aimed to gain insight into patients’ emotional experiences, attachments and connections to caregivers as well as how these are shaped by the structure of the medical service. Read more.
The student scholars in this cohort gained significant insight into the patient experience and quality issues that are relevant to the field of hospital medicine. We are proud of the accomplishments of our three summer recipients and look forward to their future successes and the project reports from our longitudinal students. If you would like to learn more about the experience of our scholars this past summer, they have posted on the resident and student HMX forum.
SHM offers two options to eligible medical students – the Summer Program and the Longitudinal Program. Both programs allow students to gain research or QI experience and learn more about career paths in hospital medicine. Students will have the opportunity to complete scholarly work with a mentor in a project related to patient safety, quality improvement or other areas relevant to the field of hospital medicine. The project is conducted over an 8-10-week period during the summer between school years or during the academic year for the longitudinal program.
Discover additional benefits and how to apply on the SHM website. Applications will close in February 2019.
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