Family Medicine Clerkship Student Projects

These projects were completed by students in the University of Vermont Family Medicine Clerkship. Block Clerkship Projects were completed during a five-week period, while Longitudinal Clerkship Projects were completed over the course of a 12-month longitudinal clerkship.

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Adolescent Anticipatory Guidance

Anna M. Corbalan
Short-term Project
This project focuses on creating an educational resource specifically for adolescents and young adults regarding the anticipatory guidance for this age group. Although adolescence is generally a healthy time for most, many health or social problems will start or peak during this time. Therefore, it is a crucial time to incorporate preventive guidance and increase health literacy to avoid unhealthy chronic behaviors in adulthood.
Wound Care in the Homeless Population- CHCB and Safe Harbor Clinic

Niveditha Badrinarayanan
Short-term Project
Most of the clinician interactions in the homeless community has prioritized acute needs over chronic complaints like wounds. An inherent distrust of the healthcare system is also common in the homeless community due to lack of access to care, transportation, insurance, et. This project is aimed at encouraging preventative care in the homeless community with respect to wound care to reduce their concerns about unaddressed complaints and also decrease the burden on the providers during their healthcare visits.
Helping People Overcome Barriers to Exercise Through In-Office PT Exercise Evaluation Referrals

Matthew Charles Hill Brandt
Short-term Project
Utilization of a poster in a primary care exam room advertising Physical Therapy Exercise Evaluations in an effort to help patients overcome barriers to exercising. The goal of the project is to capture people in the contemplative/preparatory stage of behavior change and help them reach the action and maintenance phases to improve health.
PSA Screening - Patient Decision Aid

Michael Brown
Short-term Project
PSA screening decision aid
The State of Sleep: What Keeps Vermont Up at Night?

Magalie Carey
Short-term Project
Examining Provider Burden from the 21st Century Cures Act

Jordan Carver
Short-term Project
The 21st Century Cures Act enacted new protocols in Spring 2021 requiring all patient notes and reports to be made available electronically as soon as they are finalized. In order to study the initial impact of this change on physician burden, a survey was sent out to Burlington, VT providers to assess impacts to their workflow.
Assessment and Awareness of Mental Health Conditions among Refugees in Vermont

Sandi Caus
Short-term Project
Refugees experience profound hardship in their home-country, displaced country and throughout the period of re-settlement. Experiences like direct or indirect exposure to traumatic events, torture, sexual abuse and stigmatized refugee identity post-resttlement are major risk factors for the development of mental health coniditions inlcuding PTSD, depression and psychosis. Despite major risk factors for the development of mental health conditions, culturally-specific mental health stigma persists as a major barrier to addressing mental health among refugees. This project emphasizes techniques and self-education that can be utilized to improve mentah health screening and identification among refugee patients in Vermont.
Preventive Healthcare Education in Primary Care

Anna B. Chamby
Short-term Project
Primary and secondary prevention are vitally important mainstays of primary care. Every well visit at Newtown Primary Care involved some discussion of preventive health screening and services and relied on patient recall or EHR document search for last screening/intervention dates. We aimed to find ways to make use of wait times for in-office visits that could also potentially improve efficiency during patient encounters and help educate patients about preventive health measures.
Lifestyle Changes in Covid-19 Pandemic and Impact on Modifiable Stroke Risk Factors

Kelly J. Chan
Short-term Project
Stroke is one of the leading causes of mortality and disability in the USA. Underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes and cardiovascular disease predispose an individual to increased risk of stroke. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic presents many challenges to these patients in terms of active health management and maintenance. A screening tool was developed to assess patient patterns of lifestyle behavioral changes measured by modifiable risk factors for stroke (medical condition management, diet, exercise, and smoking habits).
Improving Access to Meditation and Mindfulness for the Management of Anxiety, Stress, and other Chronic Diseases

Alex Cohen and Jesse Naumann
Short-term Project
Chronic diseases can have an enormous burden on not only an individual’s quality of life, but their economic output as well. The challenge is that many patients with a chronic disease are not fully treated despite many different medications and doctor’s appointments. Mindfulness is an extremely beneficial tool that can be used as an adjunctive treatment for different chronic health diseases including anxiety, depression, insomnia, chronic pain, and many others. An enormous barrier is that many patients are unsure about what mindfulness truly is, and where one can go about accessing mindfulness resources. Our goal was to create a quick and easy smart phrase that providers can add to any after-visit summary that provides basic information about mindfulness, different resources to access free mindfulness meditations, and our own unique 8 minute mindfulness meditation for patients to try free of charge.
It's a Walk in the Park: The health benefits of exercising in nature and a beginner's guide to hiking in Connecticut

Elena Dansky
Short-term Project
Kangaroo Care in the Community: Creating antenatal informational resources for providers and expectant parents

Emma Dunne
Short-term Project
Obstetric care providers at the Community Health Centers of Burlington create, implement, and coordinate resources to help support parents through pregnancy, delivery, and child rearing. The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the accessibility of existing resources, exacerbating the need for creative support of prenatal learning, breastfeeding, and postpartum socialization. Regular skin-to-skin contact between newborn infants and their parents is a low-cost, low-risk intervention with demonstrated benefits to breastfeeding, infant and parent physiology, emotional health, and bonding. This project aimed to establish antenatal informational resources for providers and expectant parents about the potential benefits of skin-to-skin care in the community setting.
Nutritional Habits: Encouraging Simplicity and Consistency

Alim Esemenli
Short-term Project
Nutrition plays a crucial role in development of diseases that are the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the Unites States. However, due to reasons such as time limitations, lack of clear guidelines, and what seems like a sense of hopelessness felt by providers and patients alike upon lack of results, discussions around nutrition may lack in frequency, consistency, and/or adequacy of duration, Research shows that flexibility of mindset, as well as achievability and sustainability of nutritional goals, play a key role in achieving success in weight This project proposes a three-page document that can potentially help primary care providers support and monitor nutritional behavioral changes determined by their patients.
The Use of Technology for Mental Wellbeing in the Era of COVID-19

Adam Fakhri
Short-term Project
Prevalence of mental health issues has increased during the time of COVID-19. There are many contributing factors to consider, the main one reported has been social isolation due to quarantine precautions. Members of the community have spent extended periods of time at home and away from their loved ones during this pandemic. Many patients have reported many life events occurring including deaths in the family without the ability to even mourn with their family members. This has taken a toll on the community, especially in Vergennes where this small tight knit community that has relied on its tight social bonds for wellness. There has been a trend of depressive symptoms rising in the community as well as an increase in reported anxiety. There is a shortage of mental health services through therapists and psychiatrists during this time, and a possible solution is the use of technology, specifically phone apps to aid with mental health concerns for members of the community who are unable to meet with a specialist. This project consists of a handout containing 7 apps for mental wellbeing reviewed by the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA).
Learning Empowerment & Advocacy Together: A School-Based Youth Empowerment Program

Sheridan Finnie
Short-term Project
LEAT is a virtual skills building leadership group for female identifying high school age students grades 9-12. Program objectives are to empower youth to develop their sense of self esteem, identity and to develop leadership skills to be active leaders in their community. Due to the impact of COVID-19 on youth, opportunities to build community and engage in skill building activities are lacking and this group aims to fill that gap.
Waist Circumference as a Vital Sign

Brad R. Fiske
Short-term Project
Conversion of research protocol into QI project at Norwalk Community Health Center. Goal is to implement waist circumference as a vital sign.
How PrEPped Are Our Providers?: Assessing Vermont Primary Care Providers’ Knowledge and Awareness of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) Options for HIV Prevention

Christopher Flynn
Short-term Project
In recent years, a number of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) medications and dosing strategies have become available to patients to help prevent human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. The primary objective of this research was to assess current PrEP awareness and prescribing practices of family medicine providers at the Hinesburg Family Medicine practice in Hinesburg, VT.
Herbs and Natural Supplements for Treatment of Anxiety

Agatha Forstein
Short-term Project
In the primary care setting, patients frequently bring in a list of various supplements or herbs that they are taking for a variety of medical conditions, including anxiety, with the hope to engage in a conversation with their PCP about whether these various supplements are safe and worth the cost. Physicians are often limited by a lack of training on the topic and/or by time constraints in the clinic. Thus, this aspect of care is not well addressed. This project includes the creation of a patient education sheet containing information about common herbal/natural supplements used for anxiety. It highlights the current evidence for efficacy, adverse effects, and drug/medication interactions. By providing some basic information on natural anxiety treatments, this aspect of care that is important to patients may be better addressed.
Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Part 2

Akua Frimpong
Short-term Project
This project is a continuation from the Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy project. As time has progressed since the Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson vaccine were first distributed in the United States, more individuals are getting vaccinated. However, there is still many individuals who are hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine. CDC has been addressing this by encouraging medical providers to educate their patients about COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccines. With the recall and resumption of Johnson and Johnson, engaging in conversations about the mRNA vaccine technology, efficacy, and safety of the vaccines may help reduce public hesitancy. An educational handout that was created by a prior medical student was distributed at the Brookfield Family Practice. A survey was created and distributed to the patients. The survey looked at patients’ demographics, if patients were vaccinated, and whether the handout provided guidance in understanding more about COVID-19 and the vaccines.
Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy

Aram S. Garewal
Short-term Project
COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the United States is a major roadblock in the fight against a raging pandemic. Education on mRNA vaccine technology, efficacy, and safety may help reduce public hesitancy. An educational handout was created and distributed at the Brookfield Family Practice to help alleviate COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in the local community.
Safe Sleep for Newborns: An Addition to the Infant Care Guide

Charlotte B. Gemes
Short-term Project
Many parents at Community Health Center of Burlington have questions about infant care after their baby is born and do not know where to turn to find the answers, An Infant Care Guide is therefore being developed to help new parents on basic topics. The section "Safe Sleep for Newborns" was developed and added to already developed chapters to provide parents the basics on safe sleep.
Updating Evidence-Based Patient Education Resources for Sleep: Sleep Hygiene and Benzodiazepine Discontinuation

Carolyn Geraci and Madeline Fritz
Short-term Project
There is a major need for patient education around the topics of sleep hygiene and benzodiazepine sleep aid discontinuation in the family medicine clinic setting. Current patient-focused educational materials need updating and are not comprehensive enough. We therefore created new handouts and smartphrases which integrate into the electronic medical record system with the goal of educating patients on these topics.
Patient Education: Low-Carb Substitutes for Pre-diabetes Management

Keira L. Goodell
Short-term Project
At Milton Family Practice in Milton, VT, individuals diagnosed with pre-diabetes are referred to a clinical nutritionist and sent home with patient instructions about blood sugar and carbohydrates. For those who decline a meeting with the clinical nutritionist, the patient instructions are not an adequate substitute. This project focused on the creation of a SmartPhrase to be added to patient instructions outlining common high-carbohydrate foods and options for lower-carb alternatives.
The Design and Impact of a Rural Community Supported Doula Program

Kalin Jean Gregory-Davis
Short-term Project
The purpose of this study is to describe the design and impact of a rural community supported doula program. The Washington County Mental Health Doula Project is a unique collaboration between the Central Vermont Medical Center and Washington County Mental Health Services, whereby doula support services are offered for at risk patients during their pregnancy, through the birth process and the post partum period, and up to one year post delivery. Many more typical doula programs are of significant cost to the patient, making this support inaccessible to those that may need it the most. This program is unique in that not only are the doula services free for patients in need, but also the program is funded by a collaboration between a hospital and a community organization. What further sets this program apart is the case management background of the doulas and the significant logistical support offered to these clients who have a host of needs that go beyond just birth support. The WCMHS Doula Project has been a crucial element of women’s healthcare services in this rural community over the years, but no formal research has been conducted to evaluate the impact of the program. Through a qualitative analysis, this project seeks to give voice to the clients receiving the services in order to demonstrate the unique design and impact that such services have in the lives of patients facing numerous hardships during their pregnancy and early parenting period in rural Vermont.
Exercise as a Tool for Treating Anxiety and Depression

Lizzi Hahn
Short-term Project
In addition to its important role in the maintenance of physical health, exercise has been shown to have numerous benefits for mental health. Recent studies indicate that even brief engagement in physical activity can make a positive impact on the treatment of pre-existing anxiety and depression - as well as the prevention of future symptoms. Despite this relationship between exercise and emotional wellness, regular activity in the United States is still exceedingly low, and exercise remains an underused tool by healthcare providers in the treatment of their patients’ anxiety and depression. The goal of this project was to assess patient engagement in and barriers to exercise, as well as their understanding of its benefits for mental health as perceived by providers at CVPH Family Medicine Center, and to create a patient-centered resource emphasizing the significance of physical activity in reducing the burden of anxiety and depression.