2024-2025
Dr. Christian Heck
Unraveling dinosaur life history using osteohistology – September 9, 2024
Reconstructing the behavior, mechanics, and physiology of extinct species has often relied on interpretations using gross morphological characteristics and limited sample sizes. Our work focuses on a large, single population of the non-avian dinosaur Maiasaura peeblesorum, utilizing this unique fossil assemblage to unravel dinosaur biology. By examining the long bone microstructure of this hadrosaur dinosaur, we have been able to make broad interpretations of Maiasaura life history including age at death, sexual maturity, skeletal maturity, locomotor shifts, population dynamics, and growth rate.
Dr. Julie Habecker
Global to Local: Inspiring Medical Students to Serve in Medically Underserved and Rural Communities while Enhancing Student Empathy and Reducing Burnout – GLIMMeR and GLEEEm – October 14, 2024
Access to healthcare is a significant and complex issue for individuals living in rural and underserved communities in the United States leaving these communities more vulnerable to increased morbidity and mortality. One of the most significant barriers to health equity in rural and underserved areas is the lack of health care providers who practice there. While researching strategies to further increase the number of our PNWU COM graduates practicing in rural areas, we discovered encouraging results connected with global health experiences. Medical trainees who participate in global health experiences are more likely to practice in underserved areas and in a primary care capacity. These findings are so compelling that many have concluded that medical schools seeking to produce graduates who demonstrate a strong preference to work with rural and underserved populations should make efforts to increase global health opportunities for students. Considering this, we developed a unique Global Health Elective for first year medical students that includes time in Uganda. The goal of our elective is to give students a new insight on healthcare, inspire them to practice in rural and underserved communities, and provide them with tools and skills to be successful in such settings. We aim to create an environment that allows students to learn from healthcare providers in low resources areas, increase their culture competency, and view the international providers from LMIC as colleagues and experts in their fields. Our students will observe creative solutions from these areas that could be adapted and implemented in low resource areas in the US. We piloted the elective 2023 and are organizing another elective for 2025. From the 2025 cohort, we hope to demonstrate outcomes such as an increased positive intentions, attitudes, and motivations of participating students to practice in rural and medically underserved areas, an increase in cultural competence of participating students, an increased knowledge about rural and medically underserved healthcare challenges, and positive changes in empathy and decreased burnout.
Dr. Brad Callan
Whiplash injuries and concussions – November 4, 2024
Despite a common mechanism of injury and symptomology, many healthcare providers look at whiplash injuries and concussions as exclusive injuries. My research is investigating how we commonly evaluate concussions and applying those tools to people with whiplash injuries to try and determine if we are missing a piece in our evaluation of patients following a whiplash injury.