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Rehabilitation Research Experience for Medical Students (RREMS)

2009 Recipients

The Association of Academic Physiatrists (AAP) and the Foundation for PM&R are excited to announce the second offering of the Rehabilitation Research Experience for Medical Students (RREMS). This program is offered to allow first year medical students to experience the rewards of scholarly research within the specialty of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation through an eight-week summer externship.

We received a total of 13 applications this year, which is more than double last year's applications. The quality of the applications was tremendous, so choosing those to fund was difficult. Average scores ranged from 1.67 to 5.00 out of a 1-9 NIH scoring system, with lower scores indicating higher quality.

We had 10 volunteers who helped to score the applications and needed to enlist one outside objective reviewer to aid with tie-breaking. Many thanks to everyone who helped out. There was heavy support from the PAL and RMSTP participants in reviewing applications.

We are able to fund 5 students this year. The selection committee chose the following students as having the highest quality applications:

	Jeffrey Willis, from the University of Maryland School of Medicine, will study "The Effects of Action Observation and Motor Training on Functional Relevant Tasks in Chronic Stroke Patients" under the mentorship of Dr. Pablo Celnik at Johns Hopkins University.
	Julieanne Garringer, a student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, will be mentored by Dr. Amy Wagner at the University of Pittsburgh on the study "Impact of Aromatase Genetic Variation on Hormone Levels and Functional Outcome in the TBI Population."
	Xin Li, a student at the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine will be mentored by Dr. Jonathan Bean at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital on the study "Validation of a Submaximal Exercise Tolerance Test In Mobility-Limited Older Adults."
	Nicholas Beatty at New York College of Osteopathic Medicine will be mentored by Dr. Preeti Raghavan on "Osteopathic Shoulder Manipulation to Treat Upper Extremity Spasticity Post-Stroke" at Mt. Sinai Medical Center.
	Shaun Darrah at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine will also be mentored by Dr. Amy Wagner at the University of Pittsburgh on the study "Modeling Genetic Susceptibility to Seizures after TBI."

In this funding cycle, multiple applications from individual sponsor sites and mentors were permitted. Because of this, we enlisted an outside objective reviewer with no conflict of interest to assist with making a funding decision where multiple applications from one institution or mentor was involved. One mentor received 2 student awards this year because of the high quality of these applications. Beginning next year, we will continue to allow multiple applications from mentors and site sponsors. We will allow more than one award to go to one institution. However, we will limit awards to one per mentor.

Congratulations to the 2009 RREMS Recipients!

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