Hamot Holds Research Day
By David Bruce, Erie Times-News, Pa.
May 25–Justine Schober, M.D., felt like a new mom Thursday. But instead of one baby, she had 20 of them.
Hamot Medical Center held its first Research Day in five years. Medical students and resident physicians presented 20 research projects at the Hamot Heart Institute.
“I’m thrilled to have this back up and running,” said Schober, the event’s moderator. “Having Research Day teaches you to be a better physician, to look harder at a patient’s problem and go further for a cure.”
Hamot ended Research Day in 2002 when it overhauled its residency program, Schober said. Ever since, Schober and other physicians have worked to restart it.
Thursday’s presentation included projects on Moyamoya Syndrome, a rare disorder of the brain’s blood vessels, and whether living wills compromise patient safety.
Hamot emergency medicine resident Stella Kalantzis, D.O., and Hamot emergency physician Ferdinando Mirarchi, D.O., discovered during their research that many physicians still misunderstand living wills.
Living wills — documents in which you write whether you want life-prolonging measures taken when you have a terminal illness — are meant to end confusion about end-of-life care.
“After this presentation, one of the case studies Stella is working on will be published in the Journals of Emergency Medicine,” Mirarchi said.
Residents from Hamot, Saint Vincent Health Center and Millcreek Community Hospital, and students from the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine participated in Research Day.
Local inventor John Kanzius was the keynote speaker. He presented a slide show about his radio-wave generator, which is being tested as a cancer cure at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
“John is the extraordinary model of what we are trying to teach our medical students and residents,” Schober said. “Our residents are taught to read and learn, but it’s also important to take a unique look at a problem and try to solve it in a way that no one else has done.”
Participating in Research Day was voluntary for residents this year but it will be mandatory in 2008, Schober said.
That’s fine with Kalantzis, a first-year resident.
“Research medicine is just as important as clinical medicine,” she said. “It makes you more aware of what’s going on.”
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