Research Curriculum
At UAMS, you will have the opportunity to explore research in a large academic university setting. Our research curriculum is longitudinal, providing you with a strong foundation throughout your three years here. You will be introduced to the core principles of epidemiology, evidence based medicine, and scholarly project development in four ways: monthly Journal Club, our interactive EBM and knowledge dissemination didactic series, your residency scholarly project, and an optional research elective. You also have the opportunity to explore the many opportunities our University based program has to offer including a Translational Research Institute (in addition to six other institutes with robust research initiatives) and diverse basic sciences departments. Our Division of Education and Division of Ultrasound are also pursuing scholarly projects, so there are many opportunities to be involved.
Research and EBM Faculty
Evidence Based Medicine, Knowledge Translation, and Journal Club
Mastering the basic skills to be intelligent and efficient consumers of the medical literature will be one of the many things you will learn here that will distinguish you from other EM graduates. We take Evidence Based Medicine education seriously and incorporate it into our didactics, journal club, and regional and national work.
Dr. Carly Eastin is the faculty liaison for Journal Club. Each month, the topic/PICO question is chosen by the residents assigned to present at JC that month. At the request of our residents, our Journal Club series has been moved from the hospital to off-campus to provide a more informal setting. Held at a faculty member’s home, there is time to socialize with medical students, your fellow residents, and faculty while dinner is provided. Most importantly, there is dedicated time discussing the best available evidence for that month’s particular topic. We also frequently invite consultants to attend and offer their perspective on the topic. We end each session by asking the following question: Will this evidence change your practice? Afterward, the evidence presented at each journal club is summarized into a concise document which is posted in our Journal Club Archive.
Recent Publications
- Changes in Residency Applicant Cancellation Patterns with Virtual Interviews: A Single-site AnalysisCONCLUSION: While limited, at our site, changing to a virtual interview format correlated with fewer cancellations overall. The proportion of cancellations within 14 days was much higher during virtual interview seasons, with most cancellations occurring during that time frame. Additional studies are needed to determine the effects of cancellation patterns on emergency medicine recruitment.
- Every year in the United States, approximately 48 million people are affected by bacterial illnesses that are transmitted through food, leading to 3000 fatalities. These illnesses typically stem from food animals and their by-products, which may harbor dangerous pathogens like Salmonella enterica, Listeria monocytogenes, enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7, and Campylobacter jejuni. Factors that contribute to contamination include manure used as a soil amendment, exposure to polluted…
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- CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: Although healthcare professionals demonstrated lower levels of pathogen disgust, they nevertheless exhibited largely the same relationship between pathogen disgust and interpersonal biases as did control participants. One practical implication of this association is that pathogen avoidance motives may contribute to inequitable patient treatment in healthcare settings.
- CONCLUSION: In patients with gastroparesis presenting to the ED, droperidol reduced opioid use, improved pain control, and decreased antiemetic use without any differences in MME per dose, length of stay, hospital admission rate, or cost.
- BACKGROUND: Tuberculosis (TB) is one of the leading causes of infectious disease, and emergency medicine providers are often the first physicians to encounter patients with untreated or undiagnosed disease.
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- Introduction: Ensuring high-quality scholarly output by graduate medical trainees can be a challenge. Within many specialties, including emergency medicine (EM), it is unclear what constitutes appropriate resident scholarly activity. We hypothesized that the quantity and quality of scholarly activity would improve with a clearer guideline, including a point system for eligible scholarly activities. Methods: A resident Scholarly Activity Guideline was implemented for EM residents in a university…
- Chen HS, Cui Y, Zhou ZH, et al; ARAMIS Investigators. Dual antiplatelet therapy vs alteplase for patients with minor nondisabling acute ischemic stroke: the ARAMIS randomized clinical trial. JAMA. 2023;329:2135-2144. 37367978.
- CONCLUSIONS: The GDH assay provides a sensitive and specific method for the detection and quantification of EG that is comparable to a GC-based method. More widespread use of this rapid, inexpensive assay could improve the care of patients with suspected toxic alcohol exposure. Further study is needed to evaluate the test performance in real-time patient treatment decisions.
- CONCLUSIONS: The WiSDEM curriculum was effective at introducing basic debriefing principles to novice educators without formal debriefing training. Facilitators felt that the educational materials would be useful for providing debriefing training at other institutions. Consensus-driven, ready-to-deploy debriefing training materials such as the WiSDEM curriculum can address common barriers to developing basic debriefing proficiency in educators.
- CONCLUSION: Using medical and pharmacy student volunteers as COVID-19 vaccine screeners was successful, and brief education provided by the students led to a modest increase in vaccine acceptance, with overall acceptance of 31.5%. Numerous educational benefits are described.
- CONCLUSION: Survivors of mass shootings have substantial morbidity and characteristic injury distribution, but 37% of victims had no GSW. Law enforcement, emergency medical systems, and hospital and ED disaster planners can use this information for injury mitigation and public policy planning. The BIDM is useful to organize data regarding gun violence injuries. We call for additional research funding to prevent and mitigate interpersonal firearm injuries, and for the National Violent Death…
- Contemporary Practices for Medical Evaluation of the Psychiatric Patient in the Emergency DepartmentAlthough emergency department (ED) visits for patients with mental illness are frequent, medical evaluation (i.e., "medical screening") of patients presenting with psychiatric complaints is inconsistent. This may largely be related to differing goals for medical screening, which often vary according to specialty. Although emergency physicians typically focus on stabilization of life-threatening diseases, psychiatrists tend to believe that care in the ED is more comprehensive, which often places…
- CONCLUSIONS: Computerized mental health screening did not result in further psychiatric diagnoses or treatment; it also did not significantly reduce patient ED return visits. Collaboration among EDs and mental health treatment agencies, organizations, and researchers is needed to facilitate appropriate treatment referrals and linkage.