Rice, BCM partnership targets humanities, social sciences researchers

BY FRANZ BROTZEN
Rice News staff

Rice engineers and scientists have a long and productive history of working with the Texas Medical Center. Now Rice students majoring in the humanities and social sciences are getting an opportunity to collaborate with faculty members at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) on health projects.

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Fourteen students enrolled in the new courses HUMA 421 or SOSC 423 are participating in 10 research projects at BCM this semester. They are looking into a range of subjects — from treating late-life anxiety to using chronic-illness care surveys to increase knowledge and challenge attitudes in medical education.

The idea of pairing Rice humanities and social sciences undergrads with BCM professors came last spring from Baruch Brody, Rice’s Andrew Mellon Professor in Humanities and professor of philosophy and director of BCM’s Center for Medical Ethics, and Aanand Naik, assistant professor of medicine at BCM and program chief of the Education Program and investigator with the Health Decision-Making and Communication Program at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center’s Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence. Matthew Taylor, associate vice provost and associate dean of undergraduates at Rice, played a key role in organizing the collaborative arrangement.

Many opportunities for students to do science and engineering research at Baylor already existed, Brody explained. “We wanted to provide an opportunity to do other types of research.”

One of the projects involves conducting an anonymous survey to study patient and physician barriers to HIV testing in the United States. Beverly Patuwo, a sociology major with a minor in global health technologies, is working on a project titled “Themes for Media Campaigns to Improve HIV Testing” with Monisha Arya, assistant professor of medicine at BCM and investigator in the Health Decision-making and Communication Program of the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center’s Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) called in 2006 for HIV testing of all people between the ages of 13 and 64 in health care settings in high-HIV prevalence areas — like Houston and other major metropolitan cities in the U.S. But four years later, most people still have not been tested in health care settings. Patuwo’s research is designed to examine the barriers faced by physicians to offer testing to all of their patients and the barriers faced by patients to accept HIV testing when it is offered.

Patuwo said she has collected 78 surveys from one of the Harris County District Hospital health centers in the Greater Houston area, but hopes to hear from 100 to 200 patients. She expects to finish all of the raw data collection and analysis in the next six months, with the ultimate goal of publishing a paper. “We hope to discover if the current CDC recommendation of routine HIV testing is being implemented, reasons for acceptance or deferral for an offered HIV test and attitudes and beliefs of who should be routinely tested for HIV,” Patuwo said. “These findings can help create effective media campaigns, still an overwhelmingly important information resource for the American population.”

David Falgout, who is majoring in sports medicine with a minor in biochemistry and cell biology, is working on the ethical, legal and social implications of using tissues from cadavers for genomic research. He described his experience as “a phenomenal opportunity to actively engage in research that is of increasing importance to society.”

The research team, led by Amy McGuire, associate director of research at BCM’s Center for Medical Ethics, is hoping to receive a grant to continue the project, Falgout said, but they expect to have completed their systematic literature review by early next semester.

Falgout credited the humanities and social science courses he has taken at Rice with having helped reveal the importance of ethical practices in medicine. “These courses have also exposed me to the proper methodology of assessing public attitudes related to a controversial topic, which is a major focus of our project,” he added.

All students enrolled in humanities and social sciences received information last August alerting them to the prospect of working on research at BCM, Taylor said. Respondents had to submit a written application, along with certification by the schools that an applicant had completed nine hours in the field of their major. Baylor researchers reviewed the applications and then interviewed select candidates.

Another Rice student chosen to participate in the BCM collaboration was Wei Yang Tham, a mathematical economic analysis major. Tham is working with Brody on a project on ethical and policy issues raised by the patenting of biotechnological inventions. Tham said his role “specifically involves finding out how general drug-pricing schemes work in various countries and country-specific issues regarding the pricing of and access to antiretroviral drugs, as well as general features of the country’s health care system.” So far, he added, “I have been working on the BRIC countries [Brazil, Russia, India and China] and will possibly move on to others such as South Africa.”

Sherry Lin, a double major in kinesiology and policy studies-health care administration with a minor in poverty, justice and human capabilities, has spent her semester on research involving BCM and the Veterans Affairs Research Department looking into the reported outcomes of bladder-cancer survivors.

Overseen by David Latini, assistant professor of urology at BCM and chief of the design and analysis program at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center’s Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence, the study is designed to identify aspects of the bladder-cancer survivorship experience that differ by clinical risk at diagnosis. “Dr. Latini leads a team that investigates and collects cross-sectional (survey) data from persons with bladder cancer to identify aspects of health-related quality of life and symptom management,” Lin explained.

Lin has a personal interest in the research she is conducting: Her mother was diagnosed with bladder cancer when Lin was a freshman in high school. As Lin transcribed the patient interviews, she remembered what she called “the most terrifying years of my life,” when her mother underwent treatment and surgery. Lin said she felt “humbled” to hear how the disease affected the lives of other families.

“Many of the study participants make mention of the stresses and strains that their family members have experienced since their diagnosis,” she said, “and I know this feeling all too well.”

She said her eventual goal is to work with Latini “to develop a program that physicians and health professionals can use to help bladder-cancer survivors get back on their feet.”

Taylor is optimistic about the Rice-BCM collaboration. “Reactions from the students have been uniformly positive,” he said. “All are learning a great deal and enjoying one-on-one guidance from the BCM faculty mentors.”

“This is the first time I’ve done research, and I’ve learned so much in terms of knowledge and the experience,” Tham said. “I think just the fact that the content of what I am researching is closely related to issues I am interested in, some of which are the issues that drew me to the social sciences, enables me to persist at this project even through the frustrating moments.”

Patuwo cited the skills she has developed as an undergrad at Rice — including analytical reading, writing, communication and social statistics — as helping her with her project. “My experience working with my mentor, Dr. Monisha Arya, has shown me how physicians and scientists need to be well-rounded and good communicators of research to truly engage the public,” she said. “I strongly believe that this partnership between Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine allows students in the humanities and social sciences to see that the research is successful when the spheres of natural and social sciences are intertwined.”