Students & Residents Present at Ninth Annual Research Symposium

On October 7, students, residents, and guests gathered in recently renovated Russell Hall on UGA’s Health Sciences Campus for the Medical Partnership’s 9th annual Research Symposium.

The AU/ UGA Medical Partnership research symposium is an opportunity for students to expand their scholarly experiences and learn how medical knowledge is derived. They also learn how to frame a testable hypothesis, write a research proposal, carry out a project, evaluate scientific and medical data, and write up their results. It provides them with an opportunity to communicate their findings through presentations at local, regional, and sometimes national scientific meetings.

Both medical students and residents from the AU/ UGA Medical Partnership Internal Medicine Residency Program and Piedmont Athens Regional had the opportunity to showcase their research work. The majority of participants are second year medical students who completed their research in the summer between first and second year. Thirty-one students and three residents presented their findings.

Second-year student Grace Kim tackled an issue that has gotten much attention in the public eye: the opioid crisis.

Kim did her research in Atlanta at Emory Hospital and Grady Memorial Hospital. She looked at how the opioid prescribing behavior of emergency room physicians could contribute to the epidemic.

“I am interested in orthopedic surgery and emergency medicine, and I thought this research was very interesting and relevant, especially in light of the growing opioid epidemic in the U.S,” said Kim.

Kim found out that low intensity orthopedic residents involved in care of patients seen

by high intensity emergency department providers significantly decreased quantity of opioids given, thus effectively mitigating the high intensity prescribing habits of the emergency department provider.

Kim enjoyed seeing everyone’s hard work showcased at the Research Symposium.

“I loved being able to see and hear about what my peers worked on over the summer,” she said. ‘There was definitely a huge diversity in the projects, making it even more interesting.”

For a full list of presentations and abstracts, please email the Office of Communications and external Affairs at mpmedia@uga.edu