Research

Research - Emergency Medicine

Faculty Research

Faculty members in the Division of Emergency Medicine have a track record of academic productivity and research success, contributing to the University of Vermont's reputation as one of the nation's premier small research universities. Research funding awarded to Larner College of Medicine investigators has increased 300 percent in the last decade, to more than $82 million annually, including NIH projects led by our emergency medicine faculty. Resident physicians will enjoy opportunities to join existing academic research teams to help with current projects or design their own studies. Emergency medicine faculty have been engaged in several research areas that would be well-suited for resident physician involvement. 

Dr. Wolfson has led several pre-hospital medicine studies, including oropharyngeal airway placement, ECG transmission, and naloxone administration (1). Dr. Leffler, the co-author of the textbook, Minor Emergencies, recently collaborated with the Chair of Radiology, Dr. DeStigter, on identifying systems issues that drove imaging procedures of transferred trauma patients (2). EM faculty are also collaborating with trauma surgeons on several projects, including an NIH-funded multi-center study of the coagulopathy of trauma (3). 

Dr. Bisanzo is an active collaborator and contributor to the global health literature through his work with Global Emergency Care (4). And Dr. Bounds works with EM program directors around the country to turn educational innovations into opportunities for scholarship (5). 

Residents will also have the opportunity to utilize existing databases and repositories at the medical school, including regional EMS and ambulatory care registries, the trauma registry, tissue repositories of blood samples from trauma and cancer patients, for example. They will be able to work closely with experienced physician scientists, basic scientists, and statisticians at the Larner College of Medicine, to analyze data, present results at local and national meetings, and prepare manuscripts for peer review.  

  1. Gulec N, Lahey J, Suozzi J, Sholl M, MacLean L, Wolfson D (2017): Basic and Advanced EMS Providers Are Equally Effective in Naloxone Administration for Opioid Overdose in Northern New England, Prehospital Emergency Care. 2018 Mar-Apr;22(2):163-169. PMID: 29023172.
  2. Moore HB, DeStigter KK, Mann-Gow T, Dorf L, Streeter MH, Ebert G, Crookes B, Leffler SM, O'Keefe M, Freeman K. Airway, Breathing, CT Scanning: Duplicate computed tomography imaging after transfer to trauma center. Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery (2013; 74(3):813-7). PMID: 23425740.
  3. Neal MD1, Moore HB, Moore EE, Freeman K, Cohen MJ, Sperry JL, Zuckerbraun BS, Park MS; Clinical assessment of trauma-induced coagulopathy and its contribution to postinjury mortality: A TACTIC proposal. TACTIC Investigators. Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery. 2015 Sep;79(3):490-492. PMID: 26307885; PMCID: PMC5292045.
  4. Dresser C, Periyanayagan U, Dreifuss b, Wangoda R, Luyimbaazi J, Bisanzo M.  Management and Outcomes of Acute Surgical Patients at a District Hosptal in Uganda with Non-Physician Emergency Care Clinicians. World Journal of Surgery.  April 2017. PMID: 28405807.
  5. Bounds R, Fredette J. The Consultant Chat: A Novel Didactic Method for Specialist Presentations to Emergency Medicine Residents. Journal of Graduate Medical Education 2017 Jun; 9(3):369-70. PMID: 28638520.

Our Division keeps an active list of ongoing research projects. View current list in Google.

Resident Research

 
  

Residents in the EM program are required to complete an academic project during their training. A wide array of options is available for residents to pursue, including clinical research.

The approximate timeline for resident project is as follows:

  • First half of internship year, identify a research question of interest. Perform literature review and plan study.
  • Second half of internship year, write study protocol and IRB application (+/- grant application).
  • Second year, gather data, perform statistical analysis, and write manuscript .
  • Third year, submit manuscript for publication with time to incorporate reviewers' comments and publish prior to applying for fellowship or faculty position.

Residents are not expected to be proficient researchers upon entering the program. A cadre of expert researchers and mentors are available, including EM faculty members receiving NIH funding, serving on the institution's IRB, and reviewing for highly-ranked journals. In addition, a staff statistician is available for both research planning and statistical analysis. Residents have access to EMRAP, a service that assists in enrolling subjects for clinical research in the Emergency Department.
For residents who instead wish to join an existing project, current active projects are listed using the following link: View current list in Google.