The UNMC College of Medicine offers a unique Enhanced Medical Education Track (EMET) program which provides an opportunity for medical students to delve into particular disciplines of interest in the field of medicine throughout their four year degree program. Track students attend seminars, preceptorships and complete a research project culminating in a poster or conference presentation. The EMET program is co-directed by Drs. Sara Bares, Jasmine Marcelin and Nada Fadul.
Yesterday, on the eve of their Match Day, our two M4 Students, Bianca Christensen and Travis Schreier (under the mentorship of Dr. Susan Swindells and Dr. Sara Bares) presented their Capstone Projects at UNMC College of Medicine.
Today, after years of hard work, months of interviews, weeks of decision and the most anxiety-filled week of their lives, they found out where they will be spending the next few years of their lives as newly minted doctors.
Bianca’s project is a retrospective cohort study identifying the demographic features and virologic outcomes associated with health insurance enrollment among AIDS Drug Assistance (ADAP) participants in Nebraska. The study found that ADAP users who received insurance in addition to ART supply were more likely to achieve virological suppression than those who only received ART supply. She presented her capstone project at the the American Conference for the Treatment of HIV in Chicago in April 2018, and will be submitting her work for publication. You can read more information about Bianca here. Bianca will be continuing her medical training in Boston with Pathology Residency at Massachusetts General! We wish her all the best!
Travis’ project looked at characterizing HIV practitioners’ recommendations regarding treatment as prevention, pre-exposure prophylaxis and condom use. The study found that most practitioners commonly or always recommend condoms despite the fact that most acknowledge the validity of data that successful treatment of HIV or use PrEP prevents transmission. Travis was the first author on the resulting paper entitled: “U.S. HIV practitioners’ recommendations regarding condom-free sex in the era of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and treatment as prevention“, published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases on February 21, 2019. Travis will be staying here at UNMC to continue his medical training with a Pediatrics Residency!
Each year, our UNMC HIV clinic takes two medical students into the EMET track, and we look forward to working with them over the course of their undergraduate medical training to immerse them in HIV care and Infectious Diseases. We will soon be announcing our new M1 EMET students, who will start working with us over the coming summer.
Congratulations again to Bianca and Travis, we are proud of you! And congratulations to all M4s out there who found out where they matched today!
More information about the EMET program can be found here.
Our department is proud to participate in UNMC College of Medicine’s Enhanced Medical Education Track (EMET) program! EMETs are enrichment opportunities to explore interdisciplinary fields of medicine with in small groups and with close faculty mentorship. Two students from each medical school class are selected to participate in our Comprehensive HIV Medicine EMET, a program that spans their four years in medical school and includes journal clubs, seminars, and clinical experiences culminating in a capstone project focused on an aspect of HIV care. Today we’re excited to feature Bianca Christensen, an M4 completing her EMET experience!
Yadav et al. conducted a quasi-experimental quality improvement study to determine the impact of implementing an “Expected Practice” (EP) method to alter antibiotic prescribing practices towards favoring shorter duration of therapy (DOT). This method leverages the prescriber’s desire to meet their own institutional expectations, which may be viewed as more authoritative than external medical society guidelines. The authors chose DOT as the endpoint because clinicians were concerned about potential poor outcomes with shorter DOT.
In the 12 months after implementing EP, the average antibiotic DOT decreased by 10%, 11%, 11%, and 27% for UTI, SSTI, CAP and VAP respectively, with concomitant decreases in total antibiotic exposure measured in total milligrams administered. This impact was statistically sustained by the end of that year for UTI and CAP, but seemed to wane toward the end of the year for SSTIs and VAP.
One of the studies I will lead next year will be in assessing proper utilization of chlorhexidine. Chlorhexidine gluconate is a broadly active, biguanide antimicrobial disinfectant that appears to decrease hospital-acquired infections when it is used to bathe patients in intensive care units. However, it remains unclear what the best method is for applying CHG. We seek to evaluate two methods of CHG bathing 2% CHG impregnated cloths and 4% solution with regard to residual CHG skin concentration and quantitative skin microbial burden.
In order to provide me this opportunity the Internal Medicine department graciously awarded me the Scientist Development Award. I am honored that they selected me, in order to provide me the opportunity to continue to developing my skills as a clinical researcher. Beyond leading several studies in the upcoming year, I am looking forward to beginning work towards a Masters in Public Health with a focus in biostatistics, which I believe will further augment my training.
“Richard has been a real asset for our fellowship and it is very gratifying to see him succeed. He has worked hard to grow as an Infectious Disease clinician and scientist and this award is validation of those efforts. I am looking forward to working with Richard on his projects next year.” – Dr. Trevor Van Schooneveld (ID Fellowship Program Director, Infection Control Associate Medical Director, and one of Dr. Hankins’ mentors)
“I have been a research and career mentor for Dr. Hankins starting in his final year of residency and through fellowship thus far, and supported his completion of several projects, presentations and manuscripts. Dr. Hankins has been motivated to create an academic, research career; with ongoing guidance, he will absolutely succeed in that role and I am pleased to play a part in his career development.” – Dr. Kelly Cawcutt (Infection Control Associate Medical Director, and one of Dr. Hankins’ mentors)
“This is a terrific honor for Rich and will enable him to join the ID division faculty as an instructor and devote significant time to career development. Rich’s research project will greatly expand our knowledge regarding this important infection prevention intervention, and take advantage of UMMC faculty development opportunities to hone his teaching and research skills.” – Dr. Mark Rupp (Infectious Diseases Division Chief, Infection Control Medical Director, and Dr. Hankins’ primary mentor)
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