Research Overview
Recent Research
2022-2023 saw the return of more in-person events, and it was a productive year for faculty and resident scholarly activity. Teamwork with our Research Director, Dr. Monica Gaddis, and our awesome study coordinators, Laurie Kemble, Danielle Beckham and Miguel Neely remains key to our success.
Medical student contributions
Medical students interested in emergency medicine continue to be involved in our activities — one even presented nationally at the Socient for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) conference! Infectious disease, QIPS, EMS, Social EM, wellness and resident/student education were all fruitful areas for our department, which resulted in multiple publications, presentations and abstracts.
Faculty contributions
Our faculty participate in a variety of scholarly activities and several were able to present their work at a national level this year, including Drs. Camejo, Carney, Ellison and Stubbs. Multiple faculty also had publications in journals, on-line and in book chapters, including Drs. Algren, Carney, Christian, Cook, Gaddis, Hillman, Stubbs and Sullivan. Drs. Ellison, Gaddis, O’Rourke and Stubbs continue to work on their grant-funded projects. Dr. O’Rourke’s abstract regarding ED urinalysis turn-around times also won Best Poster at the UMKC Vijay Babu Rayudu Quality and Patient Safety Day!
Faculty Scholar Program
Dr. Kevin O’Rourke completed the UMKC Quality Improvement/Patient Safety (QIPS) faculty scholar program in 2021-2022 and Dr. Jim O’Brien was selected to begin the year-long program for 2022-2023. The scholar program is based at the School of Medicine and is led by the QIPS Committee. It aims to provide professional development, collaboration and facilitate QIPS projects throughout the university. Both doctors are mentoring residents on QIPS projects currently.
Outside Involvement
EMERGEncy ID Net
The University Health Truman Medical Center Emergency Medicine department remains an active member of EMERGEncy ID Net — an emergency department-based emerging infections sentinel network — and is enrolling in several multi-center CDC funded projects. We are currently the lead coordinating site for a Synovial Fluid/Septic Arthritis study. Preliminary findings were presented by Dr. Stubbs at SAEM.
Project Prevent
We are also still participating in Project Prevent, which aims to measure the comparative effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines by conducting surveillance of healthcare personnel who develop symptoms of COVID-19 in 16 academic U.S. medical centers.
Strategies to Innovate Emergency Care Clinical Trials Network (SIREN)
Our department has also recently joined the NIH-funded Strategies to Innovate Emergency Care Clinical Trials Network (SIREN), which is focused on neurologic, cardiac, respiratory and hematologic emergencies.
Resident Scholarly Activity
It was a fantastic year for resident scholarly activity too! The Class of 2023 presented their projects at UMKC Emergency Medicine Senior Research Day on May 4, 2023, and there were multiple high-quality projects and presentations! A few notible presentations, include:
- Dr. Anna Bostrom won the Elenbaas Award for Outstanding Research Presentation for her presentation: “Use of YEARS and Age Adjusted Criteria to Safely Exclude Venous Thromboembolism.”
- Dr. Gabriel Ceceñas and Dr. Helen Hoover also presented at the Kansas City Research Simulation Alliance Research Round Table.
- At a national level, Dr. Terra Matthews presented “Raising Them Well: Supporting Residents as Parents” at the Council of Emergency Medicine Residency Directors (CORD) Academic Assembly.
We are proud of all of our resident and faculty accomplishments and excited for what lies ahead!