Forty-six students participate in annual PA Scholar Day
Scholar Day reinforces program mission to prepare students to practice evidence-based medicine and participate in scholarly activities.
From staff reports |
As part of the university’s growing focus on student-centric research, the College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences’ physician assistant program held its third annual PA Professional Practicum Scholar Day this past summer.
This student seminar is held each year at the conclusion of the second-year PA students’ Professional Practicum course. Throughout this course students develop and research a health care topic of interest, often choosing their topic based on their own personal interests or experience.
In 2022, 46 students participated in Scholar Day presentations. In 2021, there were 40 participants and 33 participated in 2020.
Some students opt to research a disease state that has affected a family member while others chose to learn more about the various treatment options for a patient they encountered during clinical rotations. With the assistance of an assigned faculty mentor, students create an academic research paper and poster that review and summarize the medical literature on their chosen topic.
The 2022 PA Scholar Day was the culmination of the students’ research activities as they presented their topics to an audience of peers, PA faculty members and other members of the Lipscomb community.
For her practicum project, student Macy Lee chose to investigate a novel treatment for acne vulgaris through her paper titled “Evaluating the Safety and Efficacy of Clascoterone, the First-In-Class Treatment for Acne Vulgaris,” while Jonathon Prozan’s research, “Early Detection Methods of Esophageal Carcinoma,” sought to compare different diagnostic tools used to detect esophageal cancer during earlier stages to improve patient prognosis and survival outcomes.
Dr. Lauren Webb, formerly the program's practicum course coordinator, served as the faculty mentor for both Lee and Prozan. Medical Director Dr. Wade Denney (’82) served as faculty mentor for Anna Womack, whose research compared survival and other clinical outcomes between two commonly used procedures, Mohs surgery and wide local excision, for melanoma of the head and neck.
The practicum course fulfills one of the PA program’s missions to prepare students to practice evidence-based medicine and participate in scholarly activities. Graduating PAs are expected to know how to find and critically analyze the appropriate medical literature in order to help them make informed, evidence-based decisions for their future patients.
In today’s society in which medical advice is readily available to anyone with a computer or smartphone, physician assistants must be able to determine whether or not the information about medications, procedures or diagnostic studies is valid and appropriate for their patients, with the ultimate aim of improving patient health outcomes.
The event was faculty member Linda Elrod’s third Practicum Scholar Day since joining the PA faculty in 2018.
“It gives students an opportunity to understand how to integrate evidence-based medicine into clinical practice,” Elrod stated about the practicum projects. “It also provides a great opportunity for them to start to understand the relevance of peer-reviewed scholarly research.”
