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Liam Rose, PhD
Liam Rose is a health economist and investigator with the Health Economics Resource Center at VA Palo Alto. His research focuses on applied microeconomics with an emphasis on econometric techniques that can provide causal inference. His work focuses on access to care, utilization, and changes in health in the transitions to Medicare and retirement. Liam has a PhD in Economics from the University of California, Santa Cruz.
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Diem Linda Tran, PhD
Diem Tran holds a master's degree in Public Policy and a PhD in Health Policy and Management from UCLA. Her research centers on the social production of health inequities and disparities in health care stemming from public policies and inefficiencies in delivery systems. Diem is currently a Veterans Affairs investigator with the Department of Veterans Affairs and Stanford University.
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Dr. Stephanie Chao is an Associate Professor and Associate Vice Chair of Professional Development of Surgery. She also serves as the Trauma Medical Director at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Dr. Chao is a practicing pediatric surgeon caring for children from birth until adulthood. Dr. Chao is also the Principal Investigator of the Chao Lab which focuses on translational research to bridge research into prevention, informed by the lessons gained at the bedside. The Chao Lab has active studies in injury prevention and improving pediatric trauma care; the lab has two core focuses 1) improving child abuse detection and 2) reducing firearm injuries in children. Her approach involves implementing educational programs and fostering community-based activism to address the root causes. The lab’s P.L.E.D.G.E. campaign is a school-based curriculum for K-12 children focused on firearm safety, storage, and mental health awareness to reduce firearm related injury and death among children. The P.L.E.D.G.E Campaign challenges students to Prevent, Learn, Educate, Deter, Guard against, and Empower each other and their communities to improve gun safety. Dr. Chao firmly believes in the transformative power of education and community engagement. By emphasizing gun safety rather than focusing solely on gun control, she aims to bridge the political divide and promote a comprehensive strategy that protects young all people. For this work, Dr. Chao was selected as one an honoree in the 2024 class of Presidential Leadership Scholars, a unique leadership development program and partnership among the presidential centers of George W. Bush, William J. Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Lyndon B. Johnson.
Dr. Michelle Lin is an emergency physician-scientist whose work centers health care delivery around the priorities of those who need it the most--particularly people who frequently require emergency care. Her active NIH-funded research projects develop new quality measures based on what matters most to patients; improve post-ED discharge care for high risk patients; and enhance health professions workforce diversity and retention. Her prior funded work has evaluated the impact of value-based care on emergency care delivery and payment; drivers of hospitalization during ED visits; and changes in the intensity of emergency care.
Dr. Chen is a fellowship-trained head and neck surgical oncologist with a board certification in otolaryngology and a clinical assistant professor with the Stanford School of Medicine Department of Otolaryngology. Her practice focuses on the treatment of cancers that affect the head and neck. She has received additional training in microvascular reconstruction and transoral robotic surgery. Dr. Chen has an active lab involved in head and neck cancer health services research and her work has appeared in numerous journals, including The Journal of the American Medical Association, Cancer, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. She has also authored chapters in textbooks on head and neck cancer treatment.
Dr. Chen is a member of the American Academy of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery (AAOHNS) and the American Head & Neck Society.
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Alexa Lynn Pohl, MD, PhD
Social context creates disparities in cancer care across broad domains: in screening, time to start of treatment, timely receipt of appropriate neoadjuvant, surgical, and adjuvant therapies, and in receipt of surveillance for survivors. Pragmatic, patient-centered research on the root causes of disparities – and rigorous evaluation of policies and programs to address these causes – is needed to reduce preventable cancer mortality. My longstanding interest in health-related disparities and patient-centered research arose while completing my PhD on sex-differential autism risk at the University of Cambridge. I grew uncomfortable with the fact that my research relied on the time and commitment of participants but would never improve their lives directly. As a result, I developed a community-based participatory research study on the experiences of autistic mothers, which received pilot funding from the UK’s National Institute of Healthcare Research (NIHR) Collaboration for Applied Health Research and Care East of England. For me, the natural next step was medical school, where I was surprised to find an intellectual home in surgery. The introspective and self-critiquing nature of the specialty resonated with my desire to ask pragmatic, outcome-focused questions as a researcher and my clinical desire to make a tangible improvement in patients’ lives. Ultimately, I aim to be a practicing surgeon with a productive research program on patient-centered outcomes and the effective and equitable delivery of high-quality oncologic surgical care.
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Lost in translation: Informed consent in the medical mission setting.
Surgery
Sceats, L. A., Morris, A. M., Narayan, R. R., Mezynski, A., Woo, R. K., Yang, G. P.
2018
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Abstract
BACKGROUND: Informed consent is a fundamental tenet of ethical care, but even under favorable conditions, patient comprehension of consent conversations may be limited. Little is known about providing informed consent in more uncertain situations such as medical missions. We sought to examine the informed consent process in the medical mission setting.METHODS: We studied informed consent for adult patients undergoing inguinal herniorrhaphy during a medical mission to Guatemala using a convergent mixed-methods design. We audiotaped informed consents during preoperative visits and immediately conducted separate surveys to elicit comprehension of risks. Informed consent conversations and survey responses were translated and transcribed. We used descriptive statistics to examine informed consent content, including information provided by surgeon, the translation of information, and patient comprehension, and used thematic analysis to examine the consent process.RESULTS: Thirteen adult patients (median age 53 years, 69% male) participated. Surgeons conveyed 4 standard risks in 10 out of 13 encounters (77%); all 4 risks were translated to patients in 10 out of 13 encounters (77%). No patient could recall all 4 risks. Qualitative themes regarding the informed consent process included limited physician language skills, verbal domination by physicians and interpreters, and mistranslation of risks. Patients relied on faith and prior or vicarious experiences to qualify surgical risks instead of consent conversations. Many patients restated surgical instructions when asked about risks.CONCLUSION: Despite physicians' attempts to provide informed consent, medical mission patients did not comprehend surgical risks. Our data reveal a critical need to develop more effective methods for communicating surgical risks during medical missions.
View details for PubMedID 30061041