1st Quarter 2025

Welcome to the first FCM Research Group Newsletter for 2025! We've had an exciting start to the year and will be highlighting our work with students in this edition. Read on to learn about each of our student-led projects, which wouldn't be possible without the leadership and support from Drs. Epling and Rockwell, VTCSOM Co-Mentors of the Year.

FCMRG Students

We are honored to have had Matthew Vinson and Nancy Wu as integral parts of the FCMRG and wish them the very best in their residency programs. Stay tuned to read their research domain publications in a subsequent issue!

Matthew Vinson '25

Matthew will be joining an Emergency Medicine residency program at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, NC. He received one of 11 Research Distinction awards from VTC and thus, presented at Research Symposium (March 2025). His research focused involved a clinical trial to evaluate the impact of a low-burden population health intervention (brief educational video) for reducing high-risk over-the-counter medication use. His primary manuscript is currently under review for publication. Matthew has presented his work at the North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) Annual Meeting, Practice Based Research Network Annual Meeting, and Carilion Clinic Research Day. His NAPCRG abstract is published in the Annals of Family Medicine. Matthew also served as co-author for our published scoping review of interventions to reduce high-risk NSAID use, a claims-based analysis of high-risk NSAID use during the COVID-19 pandemic, and another in-progress manuscript.

Nancy Wu '25

Nancy will be joining an Internal Medicine residency program with a Preventive Medicine focus at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco, CA. She was invited to present her research project results to the Carilion Clinic Health Equity and Social Determinants of Health Committee (3/27). Nancy performed an evaluation of the implementation and effectiveness of a Community Health Worker program in primary care. She is currently finalizing her manuscript to submit for publication.

Jamie Turner TBMH Student

Jamie Turner, MPH, CHES, is a Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at Carilion Clinic and the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and a PhD student in the Translational, Biology, Medicine, and Health Graduate Program at Virginia Tech. Her interests are health services and implementation research, and understanding the complex interplay between individual health behavior, healthcare quality, and healthcare delivery in a rural context. She is an experienced research assistant and research coordinator who worked on multiple research studies at the Addiction Recovery Research Center and the Center for Health Behaviors Research at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC focused on decision-making processes in maladaptive health behaviors while receiving her Bachelor of Science in Psychology & Social Work from Radford University and a Master of Public Health at Virginia Tech.

Brianna Chang '26

Brianna is a student at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (Class of 2027). Her research project evaluates the impact of multiple chronic conditions status on the relationship between “sludge” (a behavioral economics concept that describes administrative burdens and frictions, e.g., repetitive paperwork, cumbersome technology, long waits) and delayed or foregone colorectal cancer screenings.

Isaiah Yim '26

Isaiah is a student at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (Class of 2027). His data science research project evaluates the longitudinal health impact of switching from chronic opioid therapy to chronic NSAID therapy in patients with chronic kidney disease.

Camille Mittendorf '28

Camille is a student at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (Class of 2028). Her research focuses on the intersection of lifestyle medicine and primary care.

Kate Watkins '28

Kate is a student at the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine (Class of 2028). Her research focuses on physicians' trust in data.

VTCSOM Co-Mentors of the Year

Congratulations Drs. Epling and Rockwell

FCMRG medical students nominated Drs. Epling and Rockwell for Mentor of the Year. They were selected for the award and given the opportunity to speak (1:10:36) at the VTCSOM Research Symposium on March 28th.

Here are some thoughts from our medical students about Drs. Epling and Rockwell's leadership:

"With a quick wit and steadfast commitment to high quality research, Dr. Epling is a mentor who challenges his mentees with apt questions that encourages us to critically engage with our research hypothesis, methodology, and conclusions. Dr. Michelle Rockwell, a tenacious and thoughtful mentor, goes above and beyond to push student projects forward, efficiently troubleshooting challenges that inevitably appear, and is remarkably generous with her time and expertise. Their extensive experiences in health services research solidifies them as experts in their fields and the subsequent wealth of knowledge they have combined is a boon to us as mentees."
"They never fail to offer a personalized feedback session of our works in progress and ensure that we know we have their support."
"As students who have had the privilege of being mentored by them both during our research endeavors, we are inspired by their unwavering commitment to fostering a culture of excellence and innovation in our academic community. They are researchers we aspire to be."

New Publications

FCMRG had two papers published this quarter.

Demographic Variation In US Outpatient Hydroxychloroquine And Ivermectin Use During The COVID-19 Pandemic (Photo 2,3), published in Health Affairs, builds upon Dr. Rockwell’s interest in low-value healthcare. She worked with a UCLA-based team to identify COVID-19-associated use of hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin throughout the pandemic. The study team estimates that over 3 million prescriptions for these drugs, which were not authorized by the FDA for treatment of COVID-19 infections, were provided throughout the U.S. to treat COVID-19 infections in 2020-2023 (totaling about $275 million). Utilization varied throughout the U.S., with patients with the greatest socioeconomic disadvantage or living in the South having the highest utilization rates.

Reducing Stigma Through Conversations in Primary Care About Unhealthy Alcohol Use (Photo 1), is published in the Annals of Family Medicine.

Newsworthy Happenings

Congratulations, Dr. Rockwell!

Dr. Rockwell is thrilled to take on a more significant curricular role with VTCSOM: Co-Director, Health Systems Science and Interprofessional Practice, Phase 1. She replaces Dr. Cynthia Morrow, but knows she cannot begin to fill Dr. Morrow’s shoes (or boots!)

Research Interest Group

Drs. Rockwell and Epling were invited to present on "Enhancing Collaboration to Reduce Sludge in Health Systems Science Research" for the Health Systems Science Research Interest Group. It was a great exercise in applying the concept of health system sludge to our healthcare-related research system.

Docs for Morgan

Isaiah participated in the annual Docs for Morgan basketball game. Read more about Docs for Morgan in this article.

Collaborators Abroad

Grace Casado (VTCSOM '26), a student working with one of our collaborators, Dr. Jeff Stein, presented her project, Forward Focus: Leveraging Remote Delivery of Episodic Future Thinking as a Novel Strategy for Improving Type 2 Diabetes Management, at the 18th International Conference on Advanced Technologies & Treatments for Diabetes (ATTD 2025) taking place in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, March 19-22, 2025.

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