Second Quarter 2023

Society for Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Annual Meeting

Thank you and Welcome!

Student Research Assistants are a key ingredient to the success of FCMRG. We sincerely appreciate the diligent work of Virginia Tech student RA's Maddy Sifford, Eshia Singh, Ally Southworth, Stephanie Suh, and Sonia Warrior over the 2022-2023 academic year. They are the ones doing the critical background work that keeps our research going! Thank you. And we are glad to have Ally back for 2023-2024.

Welcome to Nathaniel Lambert and Jeremiah Brown, summer Research Assistants! Nate is a nursing student from James Madison University primarily assisting with the Lifestyle Medicine Registry and Jeremiah is a PhD student at Virginia Tech's Department of Human Nutrition, Food and Exercise and is working with Dr. Epling and Dr. Kim Dulaney to lead some hypertension projects. So glad to have you both with us.

Society for Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Annual Meeting

FCMRG was well-represented in Tampa, Florida at the 2023 STFM Meeting!

Oral Presentations

John Epling, MD, MSEd (FCM): Identifying 'Sludge' in the Processes for Colorectal Cancer Screening (**STFM Research Paper of the Year Award**)

Jonathan Barrett, MD (FCM): Development of an Outpatient Family Medicine Procedure Clinic in a Non-Academic Setting: From Fellowship to the 'Real World'

Jonathan Stewart, MD (FCM): Use of EHR Data to Evaluate the Impact of a Curriculum for Resident Documentation Efficiency

Poster Presentations

Matthew Vinson, VTCSOM (M2): Can a Brief Patient Education Video Facilitate Change in Behavior Related to Potentially Harmful NSAIDs? (photo below)

Nancy Wu, VTCSOM (M2) : Implementation Evaluation of a Community Health Worker Program for Patients with Uncontrolled Type 2 Diabetes or Hypertension (photo below)

Grant Generating Project

Michelle Rockwell, PhD, RD (FCM) concluded the NAPCRG Grant Generating Project with a 1.5-day mock study session held at STFM. The "GGP" is a year-long training program for health services researchers who aim to write successful federal grants. Throughout the course of a year, the 12-researcher cohort completed didactic training, group workshops, lots of practice writing, and developed a full grant proposal. Hopefully real life study sections will be as successful as the mock study section was!

STFM dinner. Pictured (L to R): John Epling, Michelle Rockwell, Jonathan Barrett, Dave Gregory, Jonathan Stewart

New FCMRG Papers

K. Werner (FCM) and J. Epling (FCM). Lung Cancer–Related Mortality and the Impact of Low-Dose Computed Tomography Screening, Cochrane for Clinicians: Putting Evidence into Practice. American Family Physician. May 2023.
A. Krist (VCU), A. Huffstetler (VCU, Graham Center), G. Villalobos (VCU), M. Rockwell (FCM), A. Richards (VCU), A. Funk (VCU), R. Sabo (VCU), B. Bortz (VCHI), B. Webel (VCU), J. Lee (VCU), K. Russell (VHI), A. Kuzel (VCU), J. Britz (VCU), F. Moeller (Wright Center). Use of population health data to promote equitable recruitment for a primary care practice implementation trial addressing unhealthy alcohol use. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. May 2023.

Impact

John Epling (FCM) presented a continuing education seminar to Carilion Clinic's clinical nutrition department focused on screening for unhealthy alcohol use - a spinoff of the work on the Virginia-wide Screening for Unhealthy Alcohol Use Project.
Emma Gahima Oyese is working on his Masters in Public Health Practicum, which will track colorectal cancer screenings and referrals at Carilion Clinic.

Ongoing Research

We are keeping very busy. Here are a few things we've been working on...

Our 1-year iThriv pilot award period for Patients' Experiences with Sludge in the Colorectal Cancer Screening Pathway continues. We are currently interviewing patients and preparing to administer a large patient survey. The behind-the-scenes of operationalizing this study has been a full-team effort!
We are in the final stages of another 1-year pilot study (funded by the Center for Health Behaviors Research at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC). In this study, which is a partnership with Jeff Stein and Mary King from CHBR and the American Academy of Family Physicians Research Network, we are examining how clinicians make decisions in certain clinical scenarios. We look forward to sharing these results!
Emma Gahima Oyese is coordinating the set-up of a patient data registry for the Lifestyle Medicine Clinic directed by Elizabeth Polk. This registry, which includes more than 50 data points per patient, will be used to evaluate the outcomes of lifestyle medicine, in addition to facilitators and barriers to access to the Lifestyle Medicine Clinic. We are currently seeking funding to support this work.
We have just initiated a large national database study (50+ health systems) to examine outcomes associated with low-value NSAID use, particularly in patients with hypertension, diabetes, heart failure, and chronic kidney disease. One of our first obstacles is figuring out how to store and manage records for more than 180,000,000 patients! A Carilion Clinic Tier 1 RAP grant is supporting this project.