Electronic Fall 2022 | Issue 52

My Summer Highlight: Pre-Doctoral IMPACT Research Program

By: Tristan Hazebrook, IPS Medical Student Committee Vice Co Chair, Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine, 3rd year medical student

Over the summer, I had the opportunity to participate in the Pre-Doctoral IMPACT (Innovative Methods in Pathogenesis and Child Treatment) Research Fellowship. I worked with Dr. Ana Radovic and her team on SOVA (Supporting Our Valued Adolescents) Program, Learn & Earn, and Screening Wizard Pilot Study. I learned about, and helped publish, the RCT for using a new tool called Screening Wizard to screen for depression and anxiety in a primary care setting.

Screening Wizard is a web- based enhanced screener for adolescents and parents that produces an extensive summary report for providers. It incorporates the results of a “basic report”, including PHQ-9, with the parents and adolescents’ preferred treatments, readiness for treatment, barriers to treatment, and discrepancies between adolescents and parents. The summary report also includes the best practices by the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) to aid providers in discussing the results, information about initiating an antidepressant, and providing access to handouts about treatments for depression, anxiety, mania, etc. Overall, patients who participated in Screening Wizard had more referrals and higher patient satisfaction, with 78% of patients responding that they would recommend it to a friend. As more primary care providers are managing adolescent depression and anxiety, Screening Wizard is an exciting tool for providers to use to help shape their decisions regarding patients.

Additionally, I also worked on the SOVA project. I led a group of underserved high school students through a 6-week course that I created, to help them learn about research. The students were a part of the Pittsburg Learn and Earn summer program, which allows students to earn money while gaining valuable work experience and developing soft skills to help them become career and college ready. I taught the students about clinical research and hosted an array of guest speakers from all areas of healthcare to show the diversity of careers and people in healthcare. Furthermore, I worked with the students using implementation mapping to revamp the Youth Research Advisory Board. Overall, I learned about several aspects of clinical research from writing IRBs, securing funding, meeting with tech designers, and more. I personally highly recommend the Pre-Doctoral IMPACT Research Fellowship to any 1st or 2nd year medical student interested in child and adolescent psychiatry.