News

UChicago at the Midwest SGIM Meeting

by Hanna Vollbrecht, MS2

This year’s annual Midwest Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) meeting was held at Northwestern Memorial Hospital on September 14-15, 2017 and had strong representation from the University of Chicago, with many current students, alumni, and faculty presenting their work. The theme of this year’s meeting was Optimizing Professional Development and Patient Care Across the Career Spectrum and brought together trainees and faculty interested in general internal medicine from across the Midwest to share their work, participate in training workshops, hear updates from SGIM leadership, and network with fellow attendees. The meeting was spearheaded by Julie Oyler, MD’01, a University of Chicago faculty member and the current Midwest SGIM president.

The UChicago crew at SGIM

Pritzker students were well represented at the meeting with multiple students giving oral presentations:

  • Mark Chee, MS3 gave on oral presentation on his research entitled “Generic substitution rates of oral contraceptives and associated cost savings between 2010 and 2014”, done under the guidance of Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP’03.
  • Desta Lissanu, MS3 presented on her research entitled “Challenges and Barriers to Implementing a Food Prescription Program in an Urban Academic Center”, mentored by Monica Peek, MD, MPH.
  • Sam Espinosa, MS4 presented on her research “COPD Readmissions Reduction Program: Barriers and Challenges Post-Discharge”, mentored by Valerie Press, MD, MPH.
  • Alex Spacht, MS3 gave an oral presentation on her research entitled “Accepting Ambiguous Loss: Attitudes among African American Caregivers of Persons with Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) towards Hospice Care”, done under the guidance of Stacy Lindau, MD, MAPP, as well as an oral presentation on her research titled “Engaging Pritzker Students in Interprofessional Chronic Disease Management: Integrating the curriculum and defining value added roles within the ReCoVER QI Program”, mentored by Valerie Press, MD, MPH.
  • Alice Lee, MS3 presented on her research entitled “Teaching Interprofessional Teamwork through Clinical Experiences”, mentored by Julie Oyler, MD’01 and Anna Volerman, MD.
  • Brooke Gabster, MS4 presented on her research entitled “Improving GME-Nursing Interprofessional Team Experiences (IGNITE): Lessons from Early Implementation” mentored by Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP’03.
  • Pritzker alum Chris Mattson, MD’17, presented on his research “Comparison of Medical Student Self-Assessment and Faculty Assessment of Personal and Professional Development Skills”, done under the guidance of Jeanne Farnan, MD’02, MHPE and James Woodruff, MD.

Many Pritzker students also gave poster presentations:

  • Margaret Wang, MS4 presented on her research entitled “Wuhan University Medical Education Reform Project: Graduating Chinese medical students’ training and clinical performance in women’s health”, mentored by Renslow Sherer, Jr., MD.
  • Meng Wu, MS3 gave a poster presentation on “Increased Obstructive Sleep Apnea Risk: Increased Likelihood for Readmissions for Acute Exacerbation of COPD”, done under the guidance of Valerie Press, MD, MPH.
  • Alex Spacht, MS3 gave a poster presentation entitled “Grip Weakness Associated with 30-day Readmission for Patients with Acute Exacerbation of COPD”, done under the guidance of Valerie Press, MD, MPH.
  • Hanna Vollbrecht, MS2 presented two posters on research done under the guidance of Valerie Press, MD, MPH entitled “Literature Review: Level of health literacy predicts technology use” and “Level of health literacy not a barrier to use of technology for health learning”.
  • Laura Glick, MS3 gave a poster presentation on her research “Low-dose metronidazole is associated with a decreased rate of endoscopic recurrence of Crohn’s disease after ileal resection” mentored by David Rubin, MD’94.
  • Robert Hughey, MS3 presented on his research entitled “Stimulating the Comprehensive Care Physician Model”, mentored by David Meltzer, MD’93, PhD’92.
  • Melany Lopez, MS3 presented on her research entitled “Social Media Editors: Bridging Medical Journals and the Online Medical Community”, done under the guidance of Seth Trueger, MD.
  • Hunter Eason, MS4 gave a poster presentation on his research “Students as Peer Educators: A Needs Analysis”, mentored by Jeanne Farnan, MD’02, MHPE.

Pritzker students and alumni were also award recipients, with Alex Spacht, MS3 receiving the “Midwest Young Scholars in GIM Scholarship” and Hanna Vollbrecht, MS2 awarded “Honorable Mention Midwest Young Scholars”. Pritzker alumna Rebeca Ortiz Worthingon, MD’17 received the first-place award for Scientific Abstract Presentations for her poster titled “Contraceptive Counseling and Shared Decision Making: Knowledge, Attitudes, and Reported Clinical Practice Among Medicine Residents and Faculty”, done under the guidance of Jennifer Rusiecki, MD.

Overall, the conference was very successful, giving Pritzker students an opportunity to share their research and clinical vignettes at a regional level. Additionally, with the strong attendance from the University of Chicago, the meeting was a great opportunity to reconnect with fellow students, alumni, and faculty.