Faculty, students and staff from the medical school and members of the Kalamazoo scientific community filled the second floor of the Bernhard Center at Western Michigan University on May 2 for the 36th Annual Kalamazoo Community Medical and Health Sciences Research Day.
This year’s event boasted 67 poster presentations and 46 oral presentations, which were among more than 130 abstracts submitted for consideration. Research Day is an annual event that recognizes what is a proud tradition of medical and health sciences research in the Kalamazoo community and it also offers a chance to celebrate and to develop and promote the richness and diversity of research in the local medical community.
In addition to faculty, students and staff from WMed, the crowd at Research Day included students, graduate students and faculty from WMU and Kalamazoo College.
James Cook, DVM, PhD, OTC, OTSC, director of the Mizzou BioJoint Center, director of the Thompson Laboratory for Regenerative Orthopaedics and the William and Kathryn Allen Distinguished Chair in Orthopaedic Surgery and chief of the Division of Research for the Department of Orthopaedics at the University Hospital’s Missouri Orthopaedic Institute, was the keynote speaker for this year’s Dr. Robert P. Carter Research Lecture. The lecture has been a part of Research Day for the last 10 years.
Dr. Cook presented “Biologic Joint Replacement – Does it really work?” and his fascinating presentation drew applause and several questions from the large audience at Research Day.
Research Day concluded with presentations from the six oral abstracts winners in the categories of Basic Sciences Research, Clinical Research, Community Research, Education Research, Medical Humanities Research and Quality Improvement Research.
Here is a complete list of the winners at the 36th Annual Research Day. Congratulations to each of our winners:
Poster Presentations
First Place (3-Way Tie)
- Impact of Knot Configuration on Suture Performance: Experiments and Numerical Models. Arz Qwam Alden, Andrew Geeslin, and Peter Gustafson
- A case of agammaglobulinemia associated with a novel BTK mutation of unknown significance. Ahmed Elisa, Aisha Shakoor, Ryan Halas, Elizabeth Kinsella, and Andrey Leonov
- The Non Dichotomy Between Malignant Catatonia and NMS: A Case Presentation. Anish Desai, Jay Patel, Matthew LaCasse, and Peter Longstreet
Oral Presentations
Basic Sciences Research: Lisfranc fixation revisited: is joint sparing bone fixation possible? An anatomic and computational study. Eric Christianson, Daniel VanZweden, and James Jastifer
Clinical Research: Clinical Synergism: Combined Fungal and Bacterial Intra-Abdominal Infections Associated with Increased Mortality. Elizabeth Krebs, Taryn Hassinger, Nathan Elwood, Zachary Dietch, Kimberly Popovsky, Traci Hedrick, and Robert Sawyer
Community Research: Crime Victimization of Individuals with Mental Illness: Response by the Criminal Justice System. Nikki Nguyen, Kristi Vanderkolk, Alyssa Woodwyk, Bob Butkiewicz, Jeff Patton, Rebecca Sherwood, Jeff Getting, and Catherine L. Kothari
Education Research: Assessment of student perceptions on skills required for optimal collaboration on service-learning teams. Laura Bauler, Ransome Eke, and Cheryl Dickson
Medical Humanities Research: An ethical review concerning the use of physical restraints on intubated patients in the ICU. Daniel Ferman, John Livingstone, Tyler Gibb, and Parker Crutchfield
Quality Improvement Research: Monetary Impact and Geographic Distribution of Cybersecurity Breaches on Health Records in the United States. Kamil Cwikla, J. Erik Winterholler, and Jay G. Ronquillo