Students gain knowledge and experience through Aultman fellowship

Second-year medicine students Kate Kravets and Parker Bauman participated in a summer fellowship at Aultman Hospital. Kravets shared some details about the experience with The Pulse.

How did you learn about the experience at Aultman Hospital? What made you decide to apply?

Throughout the year, I have received emails from Mike Appleman and Harmony Stanger about all the different types of summer opportunities. I am sure any students who have spent even a little bit of time at the NEOMED College of Medicine realize how helpful both of them are, especially in sharing all sorts of experiences for student involvement, resume growth and specialty exploration. I learned about Aultman’s summer UGME [Undergraduate Medical Education] fellowship early in the spring semester, so it was on my radar, along with some other fellowships.

While sorting through many of the different summer fellowships that offered research, shadowing and more, I had a few criteria for myself, which I am sure are individualized for each student. I knew I wanted to finally dip my toes in clinical research, as this is something I have not had any experience with, in the past. Additionally, it was very important for me to set aside time to spend with my family this past summer, as I am originally from out of town. After applying to a couple of summer experiences, I was most excited to hear back from Aultman Hospital Medical Education, a five-week observation and quality improvement fellowship.

Describe a typical day during the fellowship.

As UGME fellows, Parker Bauman and I had selected a list of specialties of interest for ourselves and had our shadowing rotations scheduled every morning from around 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. While some rotations were required for our fellowship, like Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Coronary Care Unit, I also got to explore Ophthalmology, Neurosurgery, NICU and many more specialties I have never observed before. Our mornings ranged from working in an inpatient setting rounding with the care team or observing surgeries to shadowing in an outpatient physician’s office.

Our afternoons were dedicated to meetings with our advisor, Dr. Maleenie Sharma, and the application of our interventions in the chosen quality improvement project. We utilized the Azara Healthcare population-health solutions platform to identify gaps in patient care at the My Community Health Center, an Aultman Hospital-affiliated federally qualified health center, and generated potential solutions to those gaps in care.

We are hoping to present our findings and improvements at the NEOMED Student Research Symposium this fall.

What are a few takeaways from the experience? What surprised you the most?

Even by the end of the first week of this experience, I really appreciated how much practice of medicine I witnessed during such a short amount of time. Seeing how our education from both the basic sciences and PPC [Patient, Physician and Community] courses applied in the hospital was very inspiring and motivating for my studies. Additionally, I was finally exposed to the dynamic between attendings, residents and medical students, which really showcased what my rotations will look like in my third year.

What was something you learned that you believe will inform your future practice?

The most valuable experience I gained, while probably the most nerve-wracking at first, was presenting a patient case to an attending. Having never done it before, I was genuinely nervous when residents encouraged me to pick one patient off the list and prepare a case presentation. Thankfully the faculty at Aultman were aware of my limited experience and were impressed with me taking the initiative to be a part of the care team. This is the experience I will carry with me into my clinical rotation years.

What was the most fun or interesting thing about the experience?

I really enjoyed interacting with the Family Medicine team of faculty and residents at Aultman while introducing our quality improvement project ideas and interventions. Knowing that they have their own QI requirements in their residency program, they were very receptive and allowed us to educate them on the medical topics for the improvement of chlamydia screenings at their clinic.

What would you say to someone who is considering applying for this or similar opportunities?

As the students get settled into their fall semester and winter break, it is a good idea to start thinking about what they would like their summer break to look like. Whether it is spending time in the lab for bench research at NEOMED, relocating to another institution for the summer, engaging in virtual clinical research, shadowing, working on a QI project, or traveling and spending time with loved ones, it depends on your personal preferences and career goals.

Everyone has different career goals and personal situations, so I think this approach should be very individualized. I am looking forward to seeing M1 students explore their options and reach out to other students who can potentially offer some valuable advice.

I am happy to chat about my summer fellowship experience; feel free to reach me at ekravets@neomed.edu.