UAB Magazine Online Features
Road to Recovery
Rolling Clinic Delivers Care to Patients in Need
By Caperton Gillett
Monica Newton helps bring medical care to uninsured residents of Selma and Dallas County as part of the innovative Family Doc in a Bus program. |
Monica Newton, D.O., doesn’t quite make house calls. But her Family Doc in a Bus program might be the next best thing. Twice a month for a year, she climbed into an RV and hit the road to bring medical care to uninsured residents of Selma and Dallas County.
Newton, an assistant professor of family medicine in the UAB School of Medicine’s Selma Family Medicine Residency Program, says the idea for the program came to her through her office window. “I would see an RV parked in the lot at the Dallas County Health Department across the street,” she recalls. “I kept thinking about what we could do as a residency program to reach out and connect with our community in need.”
Supported by partners throughout the city, county, and state, the residency program purchased and equipped a 33-foot RV trailer to serve as a mobile family-practice clinic. Outfitted with three exam rooms and a lab, Family Doc in a Bus opened in August 2008 and saw its first patient the following month. Since then, the rolling clinic has made more than 20 trips and treated more than 350 patients through more than 600 patient visits, offering a wide range of care from cancer screenings and ophthalmology services to treatment for diabetes, hypertension, and obesity.
EXPOsure
Research Fair Spotlights Student Discoveries
By Claire L. Burgess
Harry Miree captured the sounds of more than 50 copy machines for his latest project. To see how he turned those sounds into a cohesive tune click here. |
You don’t have to have a doctorate—or even a college degree—to work on groundbreaking research at UAB. At a time when most freshmen are still trying to find the dining hall, Ashleigh Allgood was digging up fresh insights as part of a horticultural therapy research project. Junior Nathan Renneboog followed his interest in epidemiology into outer space. And senior Jennifer Ghandhi traveled to Florence, Italy, to present her research on happiness and health.
Those projects and many more were featured at the second annual UAB Expo. According to Christopher Reaves, Ph.D., director of UAB’s Office for Undergraduate Research and the event’s creator, the Expo does more than give students the opportunity to showcase their research and field work. Undergraduates can network with faculty members and other students as they explain their projects, respond to questions, and garner feedback, Reaves says. The whole experience helps deepen the understanding of their work and gives them valuable public-speaking experience, he explains, which is a mainstay of graduate education and professional life.
Digging for the Truth
UAB Students Expose Archaeological Myths
By Jennifer Ghandhi
Sarah Parcak says debunking myths can be crucial to educating students about archaeology. |
The ancient Maya have been busted. So have King Tut and the entire population of Atlantis. For that you can thank students in a UAB “Mythbusters” honors seminar led by archaeologist Sarah Parcak, Ph.D. Last fall, they went hunting for the facts behind popular archaeological myths, debunking everything from cursed Egyptian tombs to cities lost beneath the sea.
“I always wanted to take a class like this as an undergraduate, and I’ve been wanting to teach it for a long time,” says Parcak, who hopes to make the course available as a 200-level offering by spring 2011. While most academic archaeologists avoid discussing untruths in the classroom, Parcak believes it is crucial to educate students and the public about what she calls “pseudoarchaeology.” Students investigate hoaxes to identify their origins and the reasons why the myths are so believable and pervasive in modern culture.
Inquiring Minds
Spreading the Word About Student Research
By Caperton Gillett
The third edition of Inquiro debuts this month. Each issue features student art on the front and inside covers (click image for larger version) |
In 2007, junior chemistry major Suzanne McCluskey looked up from her lab bench and made a scientific observation: Motivated undergraduates at UAB had plenty of opportunities to conduct meaningful research but few outlets in which to share their results with the world. So she set about creating one.
McCluskey assembled an all-undergraduate editorial board, established editorial policies, and then made her case to Lowell Wenger, Ph.D., then dean of the School of Natural Sciences and Mathematics (now part of UAB's College of Arts and Sciences). Wenger readily offered his support, funding the necessary computers, printers, and software, and University Honors Program director Mike Sloane, Ph.D., provided an on-campus location for the enterprise. Everything else was left up to McCluskey and her team of fellow students.
Thus Inquiro was born—a full-color, 80-page undergraduate research publication that rivals the production values of many national scientific journals. Each edition of the annual journal—the third issue debuts this month—represents thousands of hours of effort on the part of the editorial staff, faculty reviewers, and undergraduate students who conduct the research and shape it into articles to share with their peers.