Anne Richardson Wright: Examining Shoulder and Neck Pain BACK

Published by AFAR

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 UNC has access to a large database that has been actively collecting data for over twenty years. This will allow me to do both a longitudinal and cross-sectional retrospective cohort study. This is a relevant and important study because while shoulder and neck pain are a common health problem in the elderly population, few papers have focused on this topic. Hopefully, my research will add to our current understanding of this medical problem and ultimately help primary care physicians properly identify and treat this population.

Personally, this study is going to be extremely beneficial to me for a number of reasons. One, I will acquire skills in analysis and interpretation of quantitative data. This process will begin today when I meet with our statistician to look at the data pertaining to our study. She is going to take me through a step-by-step process of how to interpret and analyze the data. Additionally, my mentors are going to provide me with a written plan for analyzing the data. These small details are crucial to a novice researcher (such as myself) because they ensure that I learn how to properly look at data.

In addition to learning how to interpret and quantify the data I am also going to acquire skills in study design, research writing, and presentation. I am hoping to finish an abstract before the end of my program. I am also hoping to submit this abstract to the 2013 American Geriatrics Society (AGS) Annual Meeting. If accepted, I will have the opportunity to present a poster pertaining to my analysis of the data. This would be an amazing opportunity for a second year medical student.

Aside from beginning my research my mentors have scheduled for me to shadow in the UNC geriatric and rheumatology clinics. Within the first week I was in the rheumatology clinic shadowing my mentor and a current 3rd year internal medicine resident. It was an incredibly valuable experience, as I have had no exposure to this specialty. It was really neat to see the different patients and medical issues that presented to the clinic. I also witnessed first hand how the use of labs, history taking, and physical examination are used to make a diagnosis. The most important lesson I took away was, "Never treat labs, treat the patient". This became clear when a young patient presented to the clinic with signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis. Interestingly, when the labs were drawn the numbers strongly supported a diagnosis of lupus even though the patient did not present with any of the classic signs and symptoms of lupus. Although this was an intriguing finding and cause for watching the patient’s progression closely, it was not a justification for starting immunosuppressants.

All in all, I have only been in the MSTAR program for one and a half weeks but I have already been given irreplaceable experiences in research and in the clinic. I am looking forward to the next seven weeks and all of the experiences I am sure to have!

Anne Richardson Wright
University of Hawaii

"Diary of an MSTAR Student" follows scholars in the 2012 Medical Student Training in Aging Research (MSTAR) Program, highlighting their summer experiences. As they continue their path of research, training and clinical practice, read their daily thoughts at www.afar.org/mstarblog. New diary entries are posted every day, so check back soon.