Issue 87, July 2025

"Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim." – Vicki Harrison

I should have seen it sooner, but I didn’t. I was in a meeting about budget cuts and reductions in travel and social expenses and it suddenly hit me that what I am feeling, and maybe what many others are feeling, is grief. What we are grieving may be the same or different – attacks on identity, diversity and inclusion initiatives and civil rights; loss of grant funding and threats of much more; possible Medicaid cuts and other clinical reimbursement risks; threats to endowments, supporting scholarships and key programs as well as federal student loans; challenges to international students, residents, and faculty and their ability to learn and work here; loss of trust in science and healthcare more broadly; loss of life, loss of health,  and growing fear of war and violence, to name just a few – but the grief is palpable, and understandable. | Full Excerpt

AAMC President David Skorton emailed members of the academic medicine community on Thursday, July 3rd regarding the passage of the reconciliation bill. | Full Remarks

Application Deadline: August 29, 2025
Enhance your research with the support of a highly trained, motivated graduate student. Faculty are invited to submit part-time research assistantship opportunities for first- and second-year students across four MS programs within WashU Medicine: Applied Health Behavior Research (AHBR), Biostatistics, Biostatistics & Data Science, and Biomedical Informatics. Submit a position or learn more by completing this form. Contact Sara O’Neal with questions. | More Information

Application Deadline: August 1, 2025
Applications are now open for the DBBS Student Fellowship which offers support to trainees who have limited access to external, competitive fellowships that qualify for a standard merit award. DBBS students may apply for this award after completing a thesis proposal. Read more and apply here. Questions? Contact Heather Ahrens.

Date/Time: Thursday, July 10, 2025, 1:00PM
Location: Virtual | Register Here
The AAMC GEA Section on Medical Education Scholarship Research and Evaluation (MESRE) will host its second regional grant celebration webinar. Recipients will share insights regarding the process of applying for regional grants. WashU Medicine’s Sara Greer, MD, and other regional grant recipients, will participate in the panel discussion.

Drumming Circle & Somatic Yoga
Date/Time: Friday, July 11, 2025, 11:00AM-12:00PM
Location: Shared upon registration | Register Here
Experience drumming practice and somatic yoga while focusing on the dynamic relationship between thoughts, emotions, and physical movements. This event is in collaboration with WashU Medicine Student Health | Led by Dr. Gladys Smith

Foundations of IPE
Date/Time: Monday, July 21, 2025, 9:00AM-3:00PM
Location: Shared upon registration | Register Here
Learn about the IPE (interprofessional practice and education) competencies and the emerging longitudinal curriculum through simulation, role-play, and videos.

Date: Saturday, July 26th from 9AM-12PM
Location: FLTC, 520 S. Euclid Ave | Event Volunteer Registration
The Roy and Diana Vagelos Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences is hosting a Scientists in Training event for K-12 students who were affected by the May tornado. DBBS students are seeking school supplies as they will be gifting each student a backpack full of supplies. Members of the WashU community can drop off school supplies beginning Wednesday, July 9 through Wednesday, July 23 at the following locations: Becker Library front desk, DBBS suite 453 in Becker Library, and all Kaldi’s Medical Campus locations (FLTC, MCC, and NRB). Items needed include notebooks, folders, pens, pencils, markers, crayons, colored pencils, glue sticks, scissors, rulers, pencil cases, hand sanitizer, and tissue packs. Questions? Contact Mike Jones. 

View details & register for all events here. 

Effective Teaching Series: Instruction & Assessment
Dates: August 25, October 29, December 2 and December 8, 2025
Location: Mid Campus Center, 2nd Floor, Meeting Room 2057

Building Inclusive Environments for Learners with Disabilities (BUILD)
Dates: September 10, 17, and 24, 2025
Location: Virtual

Ready, Set, Mentor! Speed Mentoring/ Networking Event
Date: October 14, 2025
Location: In-person (Calendar invite sent with location)

Date: Wednesday, October 15 from 2:45 – 5:30PM
Location: FLTC Atrium
The EXPLORE Program invites you to attend our in-person EXPLORE Symposium celebrating the scholarly work of WashU medical students. The Symposium will feature a keynote address from WashU Medicine's Jeffrey I. Gordon, MD, Dr. Robert J. Glaser Distinguished University Professor and Director of The Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences & Systems Biology. Select student oral presentations will complete the plenary, followed by a student poster session. Refreshments will be served! Please join us to celebrate the accomplishments of our medical students. Faculty members, register for the Symposium here. | Questions? Contact the EXPLORE Team.

Following the May 16th tornado, the Class of 2027 voted to redirect their Social Budget towards relief efforts for St. Louis community members impacted by the tornado. Medical Student Government Officers Chris Bozorgmehr, Cole Davis, and Jiwon Yi vetted several non-profit organizations and chose the St. Louis Area Food Bank due to their strong presence in the community and a vast distribution network that includes 600+ local non-profits and programs. Ultimately, MSG donated nearly $1,600 worth of non-perishable food and hygiene items that are critically in need to the St. Louis Area Food Bank. This initiative would not have been possible without the collective generosity of the Class of 2027; the class would also like to thank the Office of Education and Medical Student Affairs for their unwavering support throughout this process.

Sierra A. Wallace, a PhD candidate in the Molecular Genetics and Genomics (MGG) program within the Roy and Diana Vagelos Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences, has been inducted into the WashU Chapter of the Bouchet Graduate Honor Society. Her thesis project focuses on determining replication stress signatures in BRCA1 mutant ovarian cancers in the lab of Dr. Alessandro Vindigni. Wallace is a member of Phi Beta Kappa as well as other academic societies and was awarded a fellowship through the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program in 2021.  | Full Story

The Academy of Educators and Medical Education Research Evaluation Unit (MERE)  are proud to announce the following Small Grants awardees (left to right above):
Dr. Cathy Dai: The Art of Becoming: Using Narrative Medicine for Transformative Learning in Neurology Residency
Dr. Deborah Engle: Exploring Students’ Lived Experience with Assessment in a Competency-Based Medical Education Curriculum
Dr. Cassandra Fritz: Enhancing Gastroenterology Fellow Colonoscopy Competency Through Magnetic Endoscopic Imaging: A Prospective Educational Study

Kristina Sauerwein, a senior sciences writer in Marketing & Communications at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, has received a bronze Robert G. Fenley Writing Award for general staff writing from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). | Full Story

A team from WashU Medicine earned an honorable mention for the project: Competency Dashboards at Washington University School of Medicine at AAMC's Group on Information Resources (GIR) conference. The GIR Excellence Award is given to an individual or team that contributed to a work of excellence in the domain of information technology in academic medicine. The Assessment Data Dashboard is a core feature to fully realize the benefits of competency-based medical education in the Gateway Curriculum. The infrastructure required to collect, aggregate, and display performance information to learners, coaches, and competency attainment committees has presented complex barriers for many other programs. This award recognizes WashU Medicine’s contributions to progress in this area. The WashU team included Eva Aagaard, Tom De Fer, Carolyn Dufault, Amanda Emke, Meghan Sullivan, Katie Nymberg, Jason Crustals, Sravya Ainapurapu, Matthew Wroblewski, Shanique Ferguson, and Abby Gatzke as well as WashU IT and vendor partners. 

The Program in Physical Therapy has many accolades to celebrate. Left to right: 
Dr. Keith Lohse presented his research at the American Society of Neurorehabilitation (ASNR) Annual ASNR Meeting in April. He and his co-authors (Allison Miller, Maggie Bland, Jin-Moo Lee, and Catherine Lang) have worked to move the needle in neurorehabilitation data science and machine learning processes. Their paper “Association Between Real-World Actigraphy and Poststroke Motor Recovery” is currently published in Stroke.
Miller & Colleagues Awarded Digital Physical Therapy Research Grant
The Stroke Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Accelerometry Lab led by Allison E. Miller, along with collaborators from the Healthcare Innovation Lab, mHealth Research Core, and the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab interviewed clinicians and patients regarding the integration of wearable technology into rehabilitation care. Findings from this study were used to develop a data transfer pipeline into EPIC (WashU’s electronic health record system) being one of the first instances of such use. The research team is continuing this work with physical and occupational therapists at WashU to investigate how this data can be used to support clinical decision-making and maximize patient outcomes. This project was funded by the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research through their Digital Physical Therapy Research grant.
Kamm Finalist in PhD-Level Student Paper Competition
PhD student in Movement Science (MSP) Dakota Kamm is one of 36 finalists out of nearly 200 applicants in the PhD-Level Student Paper Competition at the SB3C Summer Bioengineering Conference. He will present his research in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico, June 22-25, 2025.
Wissman Awarded Best Research Discovery Award
MSP student Madison Wissman recently won the “Best Research Discovery” award at the Spring 2025 OpenSim+ Advanced Users Workshop at Stanford University. The award recognizes Madison’s advances using musculoskeletal models to simulate muscle transfer surgery for patients with severely damaged gluteal muscles.

The Program in Genetic Counseling is excited to welcome their fifth cohort to WashU this fall. Program faculty were thrilled to open their Admissions Match results on April 16th and learn that these six accomplished candidates would compose their next incoming class. Each brings a strong academic background and experience in clinic and/or research, and we know they will enrich our WashU community and go on to represent us proudly throughout their careers.

The Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology welcomes the inaugural cohort for the Master of Science in Reproductive Sciences (MSRS) program! Two new students, Amelia Giecek and Mahima Marichetty, recently connected with current trainees in the CRepHS division of OBGYN for a pre-orientation welcome and discussion about all things STL and WashU. They will begin their core and research concentration coursework on August 25th.

In The Atlantic column, Arthur C. Brooks discusses how focus, introspection, and service to others can make work meaningful, no matter the task. | Full Story in The Atlantic | Internet Archive

Amanda Emke, MD, MHPE and Eva Aagaard, MD (WashU Medicine) and Dario Torre, MD, MPH, PhD (University of Central Florida) recently published "Competency-Based Education and Programmatic Assessment in Undergraduate Medical Education: Describing the Gateway Experience of Successful Design and Implementation" in Academic Medicine. | Read More

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