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Student Research Day each May marks the culmination of in-depth work by Yale students in medicine and public health. Here, M.D./Ph.D. student Ruth Wang’ondu listens during the event’s poster session as Elijah Paintsil, M.D., assistant professor of pediatrics and pharmacology, describes work conducted in his lab done by Jana Halfan. Halfan’s poster describes “Effect of Malaria During Pregnancy on Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV in Ghana, sub-Saharan Africa.” Since 1839, Yale medical students have been required to complete a thesis based on original research prior to graduation. The thesis lies at the core of the Yale System of medical education, which encourages self-directed learning and collaboration among students and faculty.
Photo credit: Terry Dagradi
A work light aids postdoctoral fellow Haakon Nygaard, M.D., as he prepares a recording electrode for an electrophysiology experiment in the laboratory of Stephen Strittmatter, M.D., Ph.D. The research team is looking at the effects of the neurotoxic protein known as beta amyloid, which aggregates in brain tissue and causes Alzheimer’s disease. Nygaard is a postdoctoral fellow and third-year student in the Investigative Medicine Program, which trains physicians for careers in patient-oriented research.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
First-year medical students all take Human Anatomy, and during orientation in late August have a chance to see “the remains of those remarkable individuals who donated their bodies for dissection,” according to course director Lawrence Rizzolo, Ph.D. Here, Chris Sauer and Margaret Whicker (facing) and Ameya Save and Kara Furman (facing away) work with Harry Briggs, a retired surgeon and a lecturer in anatomy. During orientation, Rizzolo says, “students learn to embrace the conflicting emotions that arise when their humanity comes against the difficult activities attendant to medical education and practice.”
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Students walk through the rotunda of the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library, part of the 13-million-volume Yale library system. The Medical Historical library contains a large and unique collection of rare medical books, medical journals to 1920, pamphlets, prints, and photographs, as well as current works on the history of medicine. The library was founded in 1941 by the donations of the extensive collections of Harvey Cushing, John F. Fulton, and Arnold C. Klebs. The notable Clements C. Fry Print Collection has fine prints and drawings from the 16th century to the present on medical subjects by such artists as Gillray, the Cruikshanks, Hogarth, and Daumier. The Peter Parker Collection contains manuscripts of the 19th century medical missionary Peter Parker and paintings by the artist Lam-Qua of patients at Canton Hospital. The Edward Clark Streeter Collection of Weights and Measures is one of the most comprehensive and extensive collections of its kind in the world.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Professor Fred Gorelick, M.D., leads a discussion in the second-year course Molecular and Cellular Basis of Human Disease. The goal of the year-long course is to provide links between basic sciences and clinical disease, covering biologic structure and function at the cellular, tissue, and organ system levels. It combines didactic sessions presented by faculty members with reviews of scientific manuscripts by students in the M.D. and M.D./Ph.D. programs. In this session, the role of proton transport in the pathogenesis of pancreatitis is being discussed.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Nancy Allen, a fourth-year M.D./Ph.D. student in the lab of immunobiologist Ruslan Medzhitov, Ph.D., sketches out a plan for an experiment using quantitative polymerase chain reaction that will be used to compare how different biological samples respond to a stimulus. In this case she is using this technique to study how hepatocytes, the major cell type of the liver, respond to insulin.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
A tissue culture room in The Anlyan Center forms the backdrop for an impromptu lesson in experiment design. Research scientist Brent Thomson, Ph.D., wrote on the entrance window for the benefit of a medical student doing summer research in nephrology in the lab of Peter Aronson, M.D. The notes outline experiments to characterize the cellular and molecular mechanisms governing excretion of substances in the urine, particularly oxalate, which predispose to kidney stones when present at high concentrations in the urine.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Ocular oncologist Miguel Materin, M.D., and colleagues discuss clinical photos of a patient with a possible choroidal melanoma at the Yale Eye Center. Materin became interested in cancers of the eye while working as a retina specialist in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He came to Yale in 2009, after receiving specialized training at the Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia and later directing the diagnostic studies unit for the ocular oncology service there. Extremely rare, cancers of the eye nonetheless caused 230 deaths in the U.S. in 2009. The Department of Ophthalmology at Yale has made many contributions to advancing research and treatment of vision disorders, including the discovery of the first effective therapy for glaucoma since the early 1900s.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Assistant Professor Lei Chen, M.D., M.H.S., looks in the ear of a young visitor to the emergency department at Yale-New Haven Children’s Hospital. Pediatrics at Yale has a distinguished history, including the establishment of the world’s first neonatal intensive care unit.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Using optical techniques, graduate students Amanda Casale, left, and Amanda Foust analyze the response of a neuron to electrical stimulation during an experiment examining the behavior of brain cells in the neurobiology laboratory of David McCormick, Ph.D. The lab is interested in the functioning of brain circuits; researchers investigate cellular mechanisms of cortical function and modulation as they relate to normal and diseased brain states.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Digital imaging and electronic distribution have greatly improved access to patient records in recent years, allowing physicians to consult imaging studies and diagnostic test results from various locations. Here Assistant Professor Julie Rosenbaum, M.D., and resident Yoon Hee Chang, M.D., review a patient’s MRI scan together in one of the school’s primary care teaching sites in nearby Waterbury, Conn.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
Sterling Hall of Medicine, dedicated in 1925, is the focal point of the School of Medicine’s campus. The limestone structure with columned entryway and domed roof is home to the 450-seat Mary S. Harkness Auditorium, eight of the school’s 28 academic departments, and the Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, including the Historical Library, which contains one of the nation’s best collections of rare medical books, journals, prints, and photographs.
Photo credit: Robert A. Lisak
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