Second Year Medical Students Meredith Haley and Mary Zulty were awarded First Place in the ACOFP Namey/Burnett Memorial Writing Award for their paper “Deep Consequences in Shallow Water: How Lack of Awareness of Shallow Water Blackout is Putting All Ages at Risk”.
The medical students first learned about shallow water blackout (SWB) in their physiology course and were concerned by the lack of public knowledge regarding this type of drowning. “After doing some basic research, we realized SWB is behind a lot of the drownings we all hear about: The drownings where the person was a good swimmer and there is no clear explanation as to why they drowned-like cases of navy seals drowning or proficient swimmers drowning in the shallow end,” said MS-II Meredith Haley.
The research has inspired these students to begin a local awareness campaign. “We have created a flyer detailing Shallow Water Blackout Drowning and are working to diseminate the information to the public by working with local pools such as the ones on campus as well as pediatrician offices,” shared Mary Zulty, MS-II. “The flyer explains how SWB happens, who it happens to, what situations it happens in, and most importantly, how to prevent it from happening.”
“We are honored to have the support of the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians as demonstrated by the Namey Burnett Preventive Medicine Award. We hope receipt of the award will help us with our original goal in this project – a successful public awareness campaign that will prevent future tragedies or accidents through increased awareness in our local community and throughout North Carolina.”
Meredith & Mary would like to thank Dr. Brian Kessler for mentoring them through the paper submission process.
MS-II’s Haley & Zulty Awarded ACOFP Namey/Burnett Memorial Writing Award