Poster Day Presentations: Raneem Altabbaa

Through the Summer Research Fellowship Program and other research opportunities through Northeast Ohio Medical University, medicine or pharmacy students gain intensive training in research procedures by working (often side by side) with research mentors.

In the Leroy Rogers Summer Preceptorship Program of the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians Foundation, students were paired with family physicians whose routines they got to know as they shadowed them and took on responsibilities over the summer. The programs culminates each year in an event called Poster Day. Below is a reflection by second-year College of Medicine student Raneem Altabbaa on her summer research.

During the summer, I worked at Summa Health as part of the Ohio Academy of Family Physicians Foundation’s Leroy A. Rogers, M.D., Preceptorship Program. I spent four weeks working with a family physician, residents, nurse practitioners and nurses.

I spent my first week shadowing the medical team and getting exposure to the type of patients that they work with. It was really a rewarding experience.

The second week, I worked in-patient. I got to see some of the patients that were admitted into the hospital and how the family doctors check on them and then spend time working on plans for them to get better and out of the hospital.

As part of the program, we were required to do a project. After spending time with the physicians and residents, I realized that there was a huge population of patients that are smokers.

So I decided I wanted to work with smoking cessation and providing resources to help patients quit smoking. I decided to make a slideshow about the harms of smoking and why quitting is a good idea to help get the conversation started with their doctor.

Physicians often focus on the medical aspects, such as talking about tobacco, patches, nicotine gum and Chantix as resources. I wanted to take a different route and talk about some new resources, like the Ohio Department of Health’s tobacco cessation hotline (1-800-QUIT-NOW) and a few smart phone apps that provide coaching, calendars, motivation and tips to quit smoking.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the handout, I talked to some patients about it and gave them a survey. All three patients that I surveyed gave a four out of five and all of them had said that they had never seen these resources before nor had they heard about them. I was glad they found it to be a beneficial resource.