Thirty Arts & Sciences students who plan on pursuing a medical career are participating in the Emergency Medicine-Scholastic Training and Research (EM-STAR) program. Steven Lorber, M.D., a second-year resident in emergency medicine, started the groundbreaking new program.

Photo by Bob Boston

(From left) Steven Lorber, M.D., Reagan Robinson, Lauren Sterner and Paul Stareteig, M.D., examine chest X-rays in the Barnes-Jewish Hospital emergency room. Robinson and Sterner are in the EM-STAR program, which allows Arts & Sciences undergrads to have a first-hand look at how an emergency department works.

"As a relatively new specialty, emergency medicine offers students the opportunity to participate in research that will advance the practice in areas as yet unexplored," Lorber said. "By allowing undergraduates interested in careers in medicine to pursue research activities within an active department, they see what patient care is all about."

Currently, students are participating in the Geriatric Abdominal Pain Project (GAPP) study, headed by Lawrence M. Lewis, M.D., associate professor of medicine in the School of Medicine and chief of the Division of Emergency Medicine at Barnes-Jewish Hospital.

"We are very excited about getting the undergraduate students involved," Lewis said. "Students have exposure to academic medicine in a very practical setting, and their contribution to our research is greatly appreciated."

As a multicenter project, the GAPP study was initiated because abdominal pain is a common, and often confusing, complaint in elderly patients reporting to the emergency department. Research for this study is organized around developing a more enlightened approach to diagnosing and treating this particular population.

Given the level of patient interaction, everyone involved in the project felt integrating undergraduate students was a good idea.

"The GAPP study is a natural," said Gerald A. Banet, assistant research director in the Division of Emergency Medicine. "It's an observational study, so this gives us a chance to approach the patient. It's simple -- ask a couple of questions and review the chart -- so it's a very good opportunity for the students to learn about clinical research."

Lorber added, "Generating better research by developing a cooperative effort between undergraduate students and physicians is our goal. Clinical research is a drawn-out process. Developing, proving and eventually presenting an experimental idea in medicine takes a great deal of time and effort."

Emergency medicine is unique in that students have an opportunity to interact with patients in a dynamic fashion. Students will learn how to interact with the community in a patient-care setting, a valuable skill necessary in their future line of work.

Arts & Sciences senior Matthew Harinstein, an EM-STAR organizing committee member and participant, said, "In the medical field, trust between physician and patient is an absolute essential for providing the best medical care possible, especially with the current concerns regarding confidentiality in today's society.

"Not only are we becoming involved with clinical research, but EM-STAR also allows us to interact with patients in a setting that is comparable to that of our future endeavors in medicine."

Carolyn Herman, Ph.D., assistant dean of Arts & Sciences, has been an enabling force since the program's inception.

"We require a minimum 3.0 grade-point average and demonstration of academic excellence in the classroom, for inclusion," Herman said, "but the grades aren't the focus. We also look for what experiences and skills the individual students bring, maturity in their goals, and what they hope to gain from this program."

Lorber added, "We want students who are interested in medicine as a career. As a second-year medical student, volunteering in the ER was a real eye-opener. It was not at all what I expected.

"People interested in going to medical school should experience what patient care is really like. We want to give participants in the EM-STAR program an opportunity to learn first-hand what practicing medicine is all about."