NYAM Students Present at Annual Medical and Dental Student Forum
By Office of the President | Oct 11, 2022
Following a highly competitive process earlier this year, Susan Gong (COM ’25), Tasmia Promi (COM ’25), Carolyn “McKenzie” Andrews (COM ’25), Grace Shadid (COM ’25), and Lulu Wei (COM ’24) received New York Academy of Medicine (NYAM) grants to support faculty-mentored 10-to-12-week research projects. Over the summer, they completed research showcasing their findings at the NYAM Virtual Medical and Dental Student Forum which ocurred last month.
Carolyn “McKenzie” Andrews observed and evaluated Brooklyn Free Clinic volunteers’ educational experiences during
the pandemic and the impact of in-person versus tele-healthcare on patients. McKenzie
found that in-person and telehealth settings ranked high for overall experience, with
the in-person approach yielding a slightly higher positive response.
Grace Shadid analyzed patients in Downstate’s Arthritis Clinic, mainly serving African- or Caribbean-American individuals—with
chronic, rheumatic conditions. During the screening process, 27 percent of patients
reported food insecurity—a rate higher than New York City. Grace and her colleagues
are working to find ways to address food insecurity in this patient population.
Lulu Wei researched how Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander populations
are described in a broad designation encompassing various countries, ethnicities,
nationalities, and identities. As a result, individuals from these countries are frequently
analyzed as one aggregate group, potentially masking individual groups’ increased
disease burden and underplaying health disparities. Lulu's research suggests the importance
of disaggregating the broader category to understand cancer disparities better and
work towards improved clinical outcomes.
Susan Gong studied the link between hypertension and nocturia, a condition in which patients wake late because of the need to urinate. Nocturia increases in prevalence with age and is associated with mortality, impaired quality of life, and cardiovascular disease, especially among Black men. She examined the physiologic link between lower blood pressures and higher nighttime voiding levels by phenotyping the urine of hypertensives. Susan's results confirmed that factors—higher BMI, increased fractions of daily urea and creatinine excreted at night, and excessive urine production at night—correlate with nocturia in hypertensives.
Tasmia Promi conducted research involving 50 pediatric patients (ages 10 to 18) where conventional
and central aortic blood pressure measurements were collected using a non-invasive
technique to measure the pulse at the radial artery. Tasmia found that right-arm and
major aortic pulse pressures were higher in patients with nocturia than those without,
and there was a trend toward right-arm pulse pressure being an independent predictor
of nocturia.
I applaud the faculty mentors for each student, who have provided guidance and counsel throughout the research period, including Carla Boutin-Foster, M.D., MSc., Ellen Ginzler, M.D., MPH, Bethany Desroches, M.D., Jeffrey P. Weiss, M.D., Ph.D., and Jason Lazar, M.D., MPH.
As Board Chair of NYAM, I am proud to highlight these five phenomenal women taking research and medicine to higher levels for themselves and Downstate.
View the NYAM presentations here.