Record number of student-doctors participate in LUCOM’s annual Research Day

Student-doctors delivered a record number of 77 presentations at the Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine’s annual Research Day on Jan. 9, featuring the work of students from LUCOM and other universities that delved into fields of osteopathic manipulative medicine, opioids, infectious diseases, psychology, and more.

With a full array of posters on display throughout the Center for Medical and Health Sciences atrium, LUCOM student-doctors discussed the work they’ve done under the direction of LUCOM faculty.

LUCOM actively promotes and funds research among its faculty through its Center for Research. Many student-doctors who presented at Research Day were involved in an optional summer elective following their first year, where they were paired with faculty members to assist in ongoing research and scholarly activity. Student engagement in the elective has steadily increased over the past five years, with almost 100 students completing the elective last summer.

Students from Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) and Kentucky College of Osteopathic Medicine (KYCOM) also traveled to give presentations and fellowship with their osteopathic peers.

At the conclusion of the day, awards were given for the Best Oral Presentation and five separate categories of poster presentation: basic science, case report, educational research, clinical research, and systematic review/meta-analysis.

The winner for Best Oral Presentation was Dr. Spencer Fitch, a resident in LUCOM’s Osteopathic Neuromusculoskeletal Medicine residency program. His presentation was a case study about how he helped an 84-year-old patient with chronically debilitating cervicogenic headaches, which are caused by underlying neck issues and have limited treatments. Fitch was able to care for the patient by developing an osteopathic manipulative treatment, which he called Neural Integration Technique, that focuses on the spinal accessory nerve located at the rear base of the skull.

“The idea is we’re using our hands to try to target three pieces — the accessory nerve itself, the bones that it’s going around, and the muscles that it innervates — to try to improve function,” Fitch said. “This was a case report of a patient I had who had these severe headaches, who’d been on a bunch of different medicines, and nothing had really worked for him. When we did this manual (treatment), he got a lot of benefit from it.”

Fitch’s mentor in the research was Dr. Mark Unger, an assistant professor of osteopathic manipulative medicine at LUCOM. As the successful result has only been seen in one patient so far, Fitch said he will try the treatment on similar patients and potentially develop a case series and clinical trial. In the meantime, he plans to write and seek publishing for his case study.

Fitch said the experience of researching and presenting findings at Research Day helps student-doctors feel more familiar and comfortable in doing similar work in the future.

Dr. “One of the biggest barriers to doing research is just that it’s unfamiliar,” he said, noting that many medical students participate in bench research prior to medical school but transitioning to more clinical application is unfamiliar. “Opportunities like LUCOM Research Day, which is trainee-focused and primarily for medical students and residents, gives us an opportunity to pair with faculty who are already out there doing research and then sort of develop and present it on our own. Having these sorts of opportunities to perform and present research on a smaller scale through Research Day is super helpful because then we have that familiarity with presentation, which we can use as a springboard to do research later in our careers.”