Em. Med. Annual Report 2011 - Hennepin County Medical Center

RA graduates speak
I had the good fortune to stumble into the Research Associate (RA) program my first year of medical school. As a
student interested in emergency medicine I thought a summer of research would be a good opportunity to work in the
emergency department and find out what it's really about, while working on research projects at the same time.
Little did I know the decision to work on research for a summer would profoundly change my life.
I stuck with the program, collecting data and becoming more interested about the studies and their purpose, as well
as loving the exposure to the ED. Previously I had done chemistry bench research but was frustrated about its lack of
immediate applications. To this day, I find clinical research fascinating, with the ability to answer practical questions
with results that can be put into practice right away. Dr. Miner encouraged me as a student to apply for a medical
student research grant. He was enthusiastic, I was excited but dubious. We sent off the application and our project
was ultimately funded.
By now, it was official: emergency medicine and emergency medicine clinical research were my career choices. I
contemplated other specialties and other residency programs, but didnʼt want to (and luckily didnʼt have to) leave
HCMC, completing my emergency medicine residency in 2010.
Today, I am in my first year of a two year clinical research fellowship in emergency medicine at HCMC. As part of the
fellowship, I work closely with Drs. Miner, Biros and the RAs on developing and ongoing clinical studies in the ED in
addition to working shifts in the ED. I am also back in the classroom, currently enrolled in the Masters in Clinical
Research program at the University of Minnesota, with the goal of becoming an independent emergency medicine
researcher when I graduate.
Johanna Moore. MD
Class of 2010
EM Research Fellow 2010- 2012.
I have been fortunate to both participate in and benefit from the RA program over my five years of graduate medical
training at HCMC. During my MPH year after medical school graduation and before residency, I trained in as an RA
and learned about informed consent, pain and sedation research, and survey methodology on the "front lines" in the
ED. Later that year, I led my own study on urban injury epidemiology that became my MPH thesis. I watched the RA
program grow bigger and bigger during my combined residency in EM and Internal Medicine. Over the past two
years, the enthusiasm and attention to detail of the current group of RA volunteers has sustained my most recent
project. We were able to screen nearly 3,000 ED patients for HIV with a rapid assay, finding 9 new infections and
getting them linked into care, and paving the way to have rapid HIV testing available 24/7 in our ED.
The RA program is an invaluable resource to our researchers, our academic department, and our hospital. It makes
population-based studies feasible in a busy ED, generating novel data on the prevalence of pain, hunger, literacy, and
other important socioeconomic factors that contribute to our patients' health. Equally important to me and many
others who progressed thru the RA ranks has been the mentorship of our senior research faculty, especially Jim
Miner and Michelle Biros. They are role models in both the research and clinical arenas, and have helped shape my
career path towards academic emergency and critical care medicine. Finally, the peer collaboration over the years
with past and present RA leaders including Dan Hubbard, Erik Rockswold, Roma Patel, and Owen Hanley has been
productive, and I now count them as both friends and colleagues.
Matt Prekker, MD
EM/IM, Class of 2011
40 | Department of Emergency Medicine Activities Report | 2009-2010