Students from the Campbell University Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine won awards recently for their work as part of the VIII Annual Cape Fear Research Symposium.
Alexandra Sobisch, a second-year med student, and her team won first place for “Quality Improvement Poster.” The title of the poster is “A Combined Approach for Curricular Improvement: Using SIM for Interprofessional Collaboration on Diverse Patient Populations.”
Phillip Long, also a second-year med student, took second place for “Patient Case Report Poster.” Long titled the poster, “Esophagogastroduodenoscopy Risks and Optimization for Caustic Acidic Ingestion in Elderly Patients: A Case Report.”
The event happened May 2 at Fort Liberty and provided a platform to showcase medical research from Cape Fear’s regional educational institutions, medical centers and military organizations, the Greater Fayetteville Business Journal reported.
“I’m very proud of our fantastic CUSOM students and their great work,” said Dr. James Coppola, chair and associate professor of Internal Medicine at the med school.
This year’s event featured 14 podium presentations from area researchers, who talked about a number of physical, mental and cultural topics from a military focused-medical perspective, the Journal wrote.
Sobisch, the first-place winner, is part of a medical school academic enrichment pilot program, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion through Community Engagement (DEICE),” led by Dr. Brianne Holmes. Holmes is director, and assistant professor, for Professional Development at the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine.
“Part of this program is to create a project of our choosing that integrates diversity and medical education or community engagement,” Sobisch said.
“For our project, we chose to create an interdisciplinary simulation medicine event, where Campbell University students from different health professions came together to conduct an eight-minute simulation medicine case in CUSOM’s Simulation Center,” Sobisch said. It was great to witness interdisciplinary collaboration among students.
Ten students are part of the pilot program, she said, and they worked together on the project. Sobisch led the project, collaborating on the idea with Jennifer Vasquez.
The other students were Nidhi Kumar, Ashlyn Chauhan, Arti Bhalani, Iris Salswach, Maya Parvathaneni, Sreenidhi Nair, Manisha Mishra and Indy Aronson.
“I am so proud of all the DEICE students that committed themselves to learning more about all matters related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and how it affects their communities, clinical education, and future practices,” Holmes says.
“They researched and worked together to effectively create a curricular improvement project that can now be used as a framework for future simulated interprofessional educational activities that are inclusive of socially and medically diverse and complex patients.
“We often speak of DEI in an abstract, statistical, or theoretical sense, but these students have created an experience that will help future clinical students bridge the gap between theory and application, and be just a little more prepared to care for the populations they might serve. It was an absolute joy working with them all.”
Long, the second-place student doctor winner, said, “It was really interesting to see how we can optimize and improve the care of elderly patients with gastric mucosal injury. Our poster raised issues, which larger, more formal studies, can address. The symposium was also a great place to see our fourth-year students and to hear about the future of medical practice in the military.”
The Fort Liberty event featured 20 poster presentations, with researchers presenting and explaining their original research and long-term case reports, the Journal wrote.
Keynote speakers included Dr. Hershey S. Bell, founding dean for the upcoming Methodist University Cape Fear Valley Health School of Medicine and Col. Tyler E. Harris, chief of the Department of Clinical Investigation at Womack Army Medical Center in Fayetteville.