Discovery Learning: CI MED Students Explore Health Problems Around the Globe and in the Clinic

Physician-innovators at Carle Illinois College of Medicine fanned out to remote sites across the globe and to local clinics this summer, exploring a broad range of health care challenges. It’s part of CI MED’s Discovery Learning experience that allows medical students the freedom to immerse themselves in specialized topics ranging from wilderness medicine in the Himalayas to evaluating how Native American tribes are affected by climate change to 3D printing in medicine.

CI MED students typically take on the Discovery Learning challenge at the end of their first year of medical school, working under the direction of a faculty mentor or clinician mentor. This year, 46 students engaged in these rich, personalized experiences, exploring far-reaching medical issues in one of three tracks: clinical immersion, research, and electives, which can include courses like microbiomes, deep learning, and medical Spanish to name a few.

At the end of the summer, students present what they learned to an audience of faculty members and student peers. For 2023, the final deliverable for Discovery Learning participants was a poster presentation session and friendly competition for the ‘most popular’ honors in each of the three categories.

Below is a summary of the projects receiving the most votes during the Discovery Learning Showcase on July 28, 2023, held at the Siebel Center for Design. The top project in each category is described in greater detail.

Clinical Immersion:

• 1^st- Bhavya Sharma – Himalayan Health Exchange  

  

  
  Under the direction of Health Innovation Professor Brian Aldridge, Sharma and some classmates spent three weeks in the Western Himalayas learning and practicing wilderness medical skills, including evacuation techniques and health care in high-altitude and resource-poor environments. “It further helped establish that I want to utilize my identity as an immigrant to provide health care access to populations in remote or limited-resource regions,” Sharma wrote.
• 2^nd- Alexa Lauinger – Clinical Care in the Wilderness and Low-Resource Areas
• 3^rd- Kamryn Abraskin – Clinical Immersion in Mohs Micrographic Surgery (dermatologic surgery)

Research Immersion:

• 1^st- Khirsen Corbins – Climate Crisis and its Toll on Fort MacDowell Yavapai Native Americans
  Khirsen Corbins set out to better understand how Native American communities, especially her own tribe (the Yavapai Nation of northern Arizona), are affected by climate change. She researched issues such as an increase in extreme heat events, water accessibility challenges, wildfire risk, minimum temperature increases, and an up-tick in violent storms. Corbins proposes innovations such as developing reservation-based or mobile cooling centers, creating a climate adaptation policy for the Fort MacDowell Yavapai Nation, and advocacy to ensure adequate access to water resources. Her mentors were Dr. Holly Rosencranz and Warren Lavey, J.D.
• 2^nd- Aditya Vaidyam – Conversation Agents in Psychiatry and Mental Health
• 2^nd- Mihir Patil – Sound Asleep: Analysis of the Sleep Treatments in Healthy Adults
• 2^nd- Jaina Gaudette – Investigating the Innovation of the Pulse Oximeter

Electives:

• 1^st- Duane Macatangay – A Proposed Materials Engineering Approach to the 3D Printing of Female Reproductive Models for Education
  Duane Macatangay wanted to link his background in materials engineering with medicine in his Discovery Learning project. He studied the biomechanical properties of the female reproductive organs and the effect of the 3D printing process on the mechanical properties of fabricated models of the female reproductive system. The models can be valuable teaching tools in medical education. He proposed a framework that relies on mimicking the mechanical behavior of the reproductive organs by manipulating parameters in the 3D printing process. Macatangay’s mentors were CI MED Professors Samar Hegazy, Peg Burnette, and Amy Wagoner Johnson.
• 2^nd- Modan Goldman – Microbiomes Matter: The Path to Regenerative Systems of Farm, Food, and Health in the Age of Climate Change
• 3^rd- Priya Guduri – ACLS and Clinical Immersion