Connor and Shriya are rising second-year medical students at the USF Health Morsani College of Medicine (MCOM). This summer, they joined the AQUASS Lab’s medical anthropology study, titled: Information and Attitudes about Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (IA-HBOT): Factors Affecting Clinical Trial Participation and Experience among Veterans with TBI. This project is a sub-study embedded within the University of South Florida’s double-blinded, randomized clinical trial testing Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) treatment efficacy for veterans with mild-to-moderate Traumatic Brain Injury. This study aims to capture the lived experience of populations within this experimental study, from patients, their family and caregivers, and frontline staff and policymakers. The two students participated in making the data codebook for data analysis, as well as collected data themselves by conducting ethnographic observations on-site at the HBOT center and interviewing patients. They then presented about their research experience and preliminary findings of the study at a USF Emergency Medicine Department research meeting.
Connor and Shriya’s involvement in the study was facilitated through MCOM’s Research, Innovations and Scholarly Endeavors (RISE) program’s Summer Research Elective (SRE). The SRE program provides students with an opportunity to conduct funded research over the summer between students’ first and second year of medical school. While the structured program only lasts 8-weeks, both Shriya and Connor have decided to continue to contribute to the team remotely throughout the upcoming school year.
Throughout their involvement in the study, Shriya and Connor developed numerous transferable skills that will be valuable in both future research and clinical endeavors. Their involvement marked both students' first exposure to an anthropological, qualitative study and, as such, they learned fundamental qualitative research skills. For instance, they were trained in how to conduct semi-structured interviews and collect more data by asking neutral follow-up questions. This skillset is highly applicable to clinical patient interviewing, when getting the patient’s subjective report of their health concern, and minimize the possibility to bias their answers while still seeking important details.
Reflecting on their experiences, Shriya and Connor also gained insight into unique medical considerations for patients embedded in a culture of military service. For example, the idea of “soldiering through” that many service members and veterans have experienced. This is a factor that may affect at what timepoint of a condition a patient with military background will present to a physician at, or the extent of information they may divulge during a clinical interaction.
The students shared that, generally, traditional medical education curriculum emphasizes measurable clinical outcomes but incorporating anthropological perspectives aids in developing understanding of the social and cultural contexts that also shape medical practice. Connor and Shriya found that while their medical training did cover the social determinants of health and broader human factor considerations, their experience with the AQUASS lab gave them a greater ability to articulate the specific nuances and social frameworks that shape a patients' experiences both within and beyond the clinical setting. For example, they observed how the social aspect of shared veteran identity between frontline staff and participants in the HBOT center served as a potential facilitator of care.
Both students have found immense value working as a part of the larger study team and are eager to continue to contribute to the team’s scholarly output.