Jul 31
2:39 pm
My MSTAR summer began with joining the Cardiovascular Research Center at Mount Sinai directed by Dr. Roger Hajjar. The group I work with focuses on the differentiation of human cardiomyocytes, heart muscle cells, from both embryonic and induced pluripotent (iPS) stem cells lines. Going in with little knowledge of either cell culturing techniques or the methods used to characterize cells, I anticipated both an exciting and challenging introduction to this area of bench-top medicine. Now almost a month into my MSTAR research summer, I have experienced both the satisfactions and frustrations that come with the field of cell differentiation. A…
Jul 27
12:14 pm
I am in a vascular research laboratory at the VA Hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah for the summer. I am looking at the blood pressure and blood flow responses in the peripheral vasculature during exercise in heart failure (HF) patients. Things are going well in lab, but in this entry I would like to talk about the exciting things that are going on outside of the laboratory. I have enjoyed recruiting patients in the hospital, attending geriatric lectures, and shadowing geriatricians. First, as with any clinical research, there is patient recruitment. Our laboratory is lucky enough to have…
Jul 26
3:41 pm
Three weeks into my project and finally some of the data came back clear. We found a protein interaction that had never been shown before and finally had a link to show that the regulatory mechanisms we’ve been exploring are real. I had been with my lab for almost a year before starting work through the MSTAR program and this project is both an offshoot and culmination of much of that preliminary effort. When the image popped up on the screen of the machine we use to image chemiluminescence on western blots, it was a very satisfying feeling…
Jul 25
3:48 pm
This is week five out of eight of my MSTAR research experience, and I am actively trying to move ahead with finishing data collection and analysis. Last week was quite busy, and I sure learned a lot about using Excel and Access. At times, learning new computer skills is frustrating, but I appreciate learning these new skills so that I can be more efficient at managing data in the future. Monday morning I met with my mentor, Dr. Jerry Gurwitz, and we talked about some preliminary data that I had organized into tables, and we talked about a timeline for…
Jul 19
2:58 pm
I am currently starting my second week in the MSTAR program and I am truly impressed with how organized and motivated the MSTAR personnel is at the University of North Carolina. When I arrived last week I was immediately given a thorough orientation to the campus, the MSTAR program, my mentors, and my prospective study. Everyone here at UNC could not be nicer or more welcoming. I am very excited to begin my research. I will be studying the prevalence of neck and shoulder pain in the elderly population. I am fortunate because the Department of Rheumatology here at…
Jul 18
10:42 am
When I thought about my MSTAR summer, I was looking forward to learning more about preventive medicine. I wanted to know more about how clinicians could take a more active role in preventing chronic disease and how individuals can be motivated to change behaviors that contribute to these diseases, such as diet and exercise. Thus far, my MSTAR experience has revealed the challenges of implementing community-based interventions, but also how important this effort can be for willing participants and communities. I am working with researchers at the UNC Center for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention (HPDP) in Chapel Hill, NC.…
Jul 16
2:26 pm
As a former undergraduate at UNC, I knew that returning to Chapel Hill for the MSTAR program would be comforting, but I had never thought that the team I would be working with this summer would be so welcoming and supportive. Today marks the end of my third week here and learning about health literacy, the focus of my project, has been breathtaking. I knew little about the subject before starting the project, and my literature review of health literacy quickly taught me that the nearly 48% of our nation is affected by low health literacy, which severely impacts the way…
Jul 12
4:54 pm
Over the past two weeks, I have read articles on how to define “frailty” and what criteria researchers use to classify patients as frail. I have learned that frailty is complex and defined differently based upon the study. One author thinks of frailty as a loss of physiological reserves and uses a five criteria checklist, which includes grip strength, walk time, weight loss, physical activity level, and self-reported exhaustion, whereas another defines the term as a loss of deficits and uses a 70 item index. Having such a difference in classifying people as frail shows how little…
Jul 11
2:50 pm
The list didn’t look promising. On this sweltering Friday afternoon, only three or four patients on the floors were eligible for the study, compared to the ten or twelve we can speak to on Mondays after the weekend’s intake. The last week had been slow—only two patients enrolled—and we weren’t exactly sure why. Perhaps it was the season (fewer admissions in the summer) or perhaps it was the (unfounded) belief of many veterans that they could lose their VA benefits if they admitted to using non-VA providers. The social worker,…
Jul 10
10:40 am
Jerome Atputhasingam University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine When I entered the examination room at the UCSF’s Memory and Aging Center (MAC), I was completely unaware of who I would meet inside. Having just started my MSTAR project, I was only beginning to get a grasp of my environment and barely had a clue about the types of patients seen at MAC. On this particular day, I was greeted by an older aged woman and her husband. As I began to introduce myself, I realized that the woman struggled to introduce herself back to me. She…
Jul 09
10:42 am
I am officially a few weeks into my MSTAR project. I am working with the Mount Sinai Visiting Doctors (MSVD) program that provides care to homebound, generally elderly, patients within Manhattan. I had experience with MSVD this past year as part of my Longitudinal Clinical Experience (LCE). The LCE involves following a doctor and his or her patient for two years while learning about the patient’s chronic illnesses, life, and how the two intersect. My LCE patient is in her late 80s and suffers from a complexity of issues including severe scoliosis, breast cancer, advancing dementia, and a…
Jul 05
4:54 pm
John Bridges University of Mississippi Medical Center School of Medicine This week marks the completion of my first month of summer research with the MSTAR program. I am impressed by the amount that I have learned in the past month, but even more impressive is the amount I have left to learn about how to conduct sound research. Research is difficult, and it requires concentration and dedication. I have found it interesting how much is yet to be explored in the field of geriatrics. It is an exciting time to be researching in this field, and I have…
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