The 2025 C.U.R.R.E. Symposium, held recently, brought together a diverse array of exceptional physicians, faculty, staff and students representing the Campbell University medical school and its health partners.
The Campbell University Regional Research and Educational Symposium was a bit different this year, however.
In its eight year, the event Feb. 7 was held online via Fourwaves, a new platform that, organizers said, hoped to address the distance disparity for Campbell’s educational affiliate sites and to help solve some of the interactivity recommendations regarding the prior hybrid poster events.
C.U.R.R.E. is intended to promote collegiality and create an environment of scholarly inquiry among all Campbell-sponsored Graduate Medical Education programs and university-affiliated graduate medical education sites.
The original purpose of the CURRE Symposium is helping residents through their training to critically assess the healthcare industry in the quality-improvement areas of Mortality, Readmissions, Safety of Care, Patient Experience, Effectiveness of Care, Timeliness of Care, Efficient Use of Medical Imaging and Testing, Emerging Medical Care and Diagnosis and Academic Medicine.”
The event celebrates the latest advancements in graduate medical education clinical research.
It, too, is an academic competition, judged by a diverse group of physicians from Campbell and its myriad health partners. Hospital systems represented at the symposium were Cape Fear Valley Health, UNC Health Southeastern, Harnett Health, Sampson Regional Medical Center and Conway Medical Center in South Carolina, as well as the North Carolina Osteopathic Medical Association (NCOMA), a co-sponsor of the event, with Campbell.
Dr. Robin King-Thiele welcomed the group to the online event and offered a special thanks to those who coordinated and organized the online event.
King-Thiele is Designated Institutional Official for the Campbell University Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine (CUSOM) Graduate Medical Education programs and associate dean for postgraduate affairs. King-Thiele also is an associate professor of Internal Medicine and Hospice/Palliative Medicine at Campbell.
“There are some great posters this year,” she said. “And I hope everyone has a good time looking at all the cases and projects that are happening across all our affiliate campuses and with the CUSOM student representation.”
Other event organizers and contributors were: Dr. Terri Hamrick, associate dean for Research chair and professor of Microbiology and Immunology; Robert Schmid, assistant professor and director of Operations for the CUSOM Simulation Center and a Patient Safety Officer, GME; Tydal M. Jackson, sponsoring institution coordinator for GME; Clarissa Angeloff, CUSOM administrator of Research; and Betsy Hilt, NCOMA executive director.
Judges pored over some 170 research submissions — many based on actual cases — from residents and Campbell students displayed in painstaking detail. The research is broken into categories, and prizes were awarded after a presentation culminating the event.
The annual symposium helps bring new excitement to the practice of osteopathic medicine, organizers say.
“Obviously, as the N.C. Osteopathic Medical Association, it’s important for us to help nurture the students and the residents, and help them get to this experience,” Hilt has said. “And, hopefully, they stay in our state to practice, and especially in some of the more rural areas.”
“I appreciate the amount of work and effort that goes into organizing and running something of this magnitude,” said Dr. Amy Hinkelman, a contest judge and director of the Academic Center for Excellence and associate professor Microbiology and Immunology at the med school.
“From the perspective of a judge and participant, it went very smoothly and was very easy to navigate — and fun. I very much enjoyed being a part of this so thank you all for all your hard work in making this happen.”
The number of osteopathic physicians in the U.S. has increased by more than 70% in the past decade, the American Osteopathic Association (AOA) says.
“Over the past 150 years,” the AOA says, the osteopathic medical profession has grown exponentially and today represents approximately 11% of all physicians and 28% of all medical students in the U.S. More prospective physicians than ever before are choosing to become DOs, with nearly 40,000 medical students attending 42 colleges of osteopathic medicine across 67 campuses.”
Symposium winners are listed, including project type, category, hospital affiliation, authors, advisers and title. Several categories had minimal submissions and combined to determine one winner; one category, “Emerging Medical Care/Diagnosis,” had more than 30 submissions and, thus, two winners:
Original Research Project, Mortality, Harnett Health, authors Praruj Pant and Vijay Krishnamoorthy, faculty adviser Renuka Kadali: “Examining the incidence of acute kidney injury in patients with community-onset sepsis based on inciting microbial pathogen and culture type.”
Clinical Case, Readmissions, Sampson Regional Medical Center, authors James Shaughnessy, faculty adviser, John-Mark Miller: “Addressing barriers to insulin access to decrease readmission rates for patients with diabetic ketoacidosis.”
Clinical Case, Effectiveness of Care, Sampson Regional Medical Center, author Timothy Schaefer, faculty adviser, Allison Matte: “Initiation of (Medical Assisted Treatment) in a pregnant patient — Challenges in treating substance use disorders In Sampson County.”
Clinical Case, Timeliness of Care, UNC Health Southeastern, author Brittany Suddreth, faculty adviser Richard Woerndle: “Critical care strategies in managing acute renal failure with metabolic acidosis and cardiovascular instability.
Clinical Case, Efficient Use of Medical Imaging/Testing, UNC Health Southeastern, author Karen Khattak, faculty advisers Brianna Crosby and Manjinder Samra: “Molar mystery.”
Clinical Case, Emerging Medical Care/Diagnosis, Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, authors, Edgar Domenech and Madalyn Wickham, faculty advisers Purnachander Vangala and Edward Kim: “Amiodarone induced Thyrotoxicosis.”
Clinical Case, Emerging Medical Care/Diagnosis, Harnett Health, authors Simin Hajian; and Serena Mitchell, faculty adviser Meghan Hubbard: Encephalitis: A rare manifestation of Varicella Zoster virus infection.
Clinical Case, Academic Medicine, Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, authors Helen Berhe, Stella Ogbu and Calvin Hamerski, faculty advisers Teshome Hailemichael and Chinazor Umerah: “Multi-system nature of hereditary Hemorrhagic Telangiectasia.”
Resident project finalists were:
First place
Original Research Project, Effectiveness of Care, Harnett Health, authors Bonnie Page and Morgan Hawkins, faculty adviser Jennifer Hill: “Improving resident comfortability with the medicare annual wellness visit.”
Second place
Original Research Project, Mortality, Harnett Health, authors Praruj Pant and Vijay
Krishnamoorthy, faculty adviser Renuka Kadali: “Examining the incidence of acute kidney injury in patients with community-onset sepsis based on inciting microbial pathogen and culture type.”
Third place
Original Research Project (work in progress update), Effectiveness of Care, UNC Health Southeastern, authors Michael Mitchell, Ami Parmar, Nadia Chaudhry and Gina Tadros, faculty adviser Peter Fortkort: “Measuring compliance of recording blood glucose logs given to clinic patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.”
Top three Campbell med students:
Clinical Case, Academic Medicine, authors Elizabeth Chan, Mason MacLauchlin and John Wu, faculty adviser David Green: “Cadaveric variants of fibularis brevis and tertius.”
Clinical Case, Safety of Care, authors Todd Anderson and Emily Carletto, faculty adviser Stanislaw Miaskowski: “The use of GLP-1 in the perioperative period, a postoperative gut check.”
Original Research Project, Efficient Use of Medical Imaging/Testing, authors Hanna Harris and Aviya Distefano, faculty advisers, Kaitlin Bowers and Dhimitri Nikolla:
“Osteopathic diagnosis and treatment amongst United States trauma patients.”
People’s Choice
Clinical Case, Academic Medicine, Cape Fear Valley Medical Center, authors Mackenzie Gayer, Sejal Mahajan and Juliana De Figueiredo, faculty adviser Kenneith
Fleishman, “Treatment resistant depression and electroconvulsive therapy.”