Current Medical Humanities Research Projects
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Chin Jou (Rice University)
Project Title
Captive Consumers: Hunger, Inequality, and Violence in American Prison Food
Project Description
This project is a book manuscript on prison food that I drafted and submitted this past June. The book manuscript discusses virtually every aspect of prison food in the United States, including nutrition and health. I hope to receive readers' reports on the manuscript soon, and expect to revise the manuscript in accordance with readers' reports and prepare it for publication in Spring 2025.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
The selected student would probably be fact checking, copy editing, making sure endnotes correspond to text, and obtaining permissions to reproduce/publish photographs and other images from their sources. A student interested in a career in publishing and/or applying to graduate school in the humanities would probably get the most out of the tasks associated with this project.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Luziris Pineda Turi (Rice University)
Project Title
U.S. Latine Health Research
Project Description
SPAN 333: U.S. Latine Health focuses on the most current research about the topic. In order to keep the course up to date, Dr. Pinea Turi seeks a student capable of gathering and doing a review of research articles focused on different medical humanities topics connected to the U.S. Latine population. English and Spanish proficiency required.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Research
Literature Review
Analysis
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Natasha Afonso (Texas Children's Hospital)
Project Title
Experiencing the ICU as a Limited English Proficiency Family Member: A Phenomenological Study
Project Description
Patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) face significant risks within the healthcare system, including increased medical errors, lower satisfaction rates, and longer hospital stays. These challenges are particularly pronounced in the intensive care unit, a high-stakes environment where critical decisions are made and clear communication between providers and families is essential. The experience of LEP family members in this setting is complex and often fraught with additional stress due to language barriers which can impair their understanding of care decisions, increase feelings of isolation and hinder participation in their loved one's care. This project aims to explore the unique experiences of LEP family members of ICU patients, uncovering the challenges they face as well as how these barriers may impact patient outcomes. Using a phenomenological approach, the student will conduct in-depth interviews with LEP family members of ICU patients to capture their personal narratives and understand the impact of language barriers on their ICU experience.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Conduct literature review on experience of Limited English proficiency patients/families while in the hospital.
Development of semi-structured interview to explore key topics such as clarity of medical information, emotional responses to ICU communication and interactions with healthcare providers.
Conduct in-depth Interviews with LEP family members of ICU patients to collect first hand narratives about their time in the ICU.
Transcribe and analyze the interviews to identify themes related to communication, trust and overall satisfaction with care.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Michael Chang (Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital)
Project Title
Antibiotic Accountability: Minimizing Waste, Maximizing Sustainability in Healthcare
Project Description
There is a growing body of literature analyzing the impact of inefficient management of antibiotics at the hospital level. Significant quantities of antibiotics are wasted in pediatric hospitals including those in shortage. Beyond the economic impact, antibiotic waste is also related to supply chain resiliency and overall hospital waste and healthcare sustainability. (References: DOI: 10.1177/0018578719844164 and DOI: 10.1017/ice.2023.118)
The overall goal of this project is to examine antibiotic waste within a pediatric acute care hospital and identify opportunities for reducing waste. This project aligns with the medical humanities in the following ways: Environmental Impact: This project lets students explore the connection between healthcare and environmental sustainability, prompting discussions about how healthcare practices impact our environment in currently unaccounted ways. Stories and Communication: Talking to staff about their views on antibiotic use and waste can reveal everyday challenges and attitudes toward sustainability. These narratives could provide insights into the everyday challenges healthcare providers face in balancing effective patient care with sustainable practices. This aspect of the medical humanities brings human experiences and stories into the project, offering valuable qualitative data to support quantitative findings.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Qualitative and quantitative end-to-end examination of how antibiotic prescriptions flow through a pediatric acute care hospital. Qualitative tasks would include observations of social structures within inpatient pediatric teams that drive antibiotic prescriptions and how different types of healthcare providers interact and perceive their relationship to antibiotics, waste, and sustainability. Students would conduct interviews with providers, pharmacists, nurses, patient families about perceptions around antibiotic waste.
Students would perform quantitative data collection on the volume, cost, and impact of wasted antibiotics. Students would attempt to identify and develop interventions to reduce antibiotic waste. Students would also develop the communications and messaging to implement interventions, and subsequently try to measure quantitative outcomes from their intervention. Finally, students would develop and collect qualitative measures of perceptions of effectiveness of messaging and interventions to reduce antibiotic waste in the hospital.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Misti Ellsworth (Children's Memorial Hermann Hospital)
Project Title
Understanding Patient and Family Refusal of CHG bathing
Project Description
Hospital acquired infections (HAIs) contribute to significant patient morbidity and mortality. One pediatric central line associated blood stream infection (CLABSI) can increase the cost of care by $50,000 dollars and extend the hospitalization by up to 3 weeks (1). Daily chlorhexidine gluconate (CHG) bathing has been proven to reduce hospital acquired infections and is included in our maintenance bundle for central line care to prevent CLABSIs. Despite the evidence supporting this practice, compliance with daily bathing in our children’s hospital is currently not at our goal of 95%. Over the past 12 months, CHG bathing compliance across all units has ranged from 70-80%. Frequent reasons for missed CHG bathing include lack of nursing time, patient factors such as instability or hypothermia, and parent or patient refusal. Parent or family CHG bathing refusals account for 11-30% of missed baths. The reason for parent or patient refusal is not consistently documented and there is currently no process to address the refusal or to provide education on the benefits of CHG bathing. The aim of this project is to reduce CHG bathing refusals by 50% over the next 6 months. To accomplish this goal, we will identify the reasons for refusal, create a process to address these reasons and develop education on CHG bathing for patients and families. The student's work will engage with medical humanities through interviews to gain insight into the patient's perspective of CHG bathing. This will allow us to identify reasons behind refusals and help drive interventions that improve the experience for patients and families. The student and I will also partner with families to create educational materials to explain the "why" behind CHG bathing.
Goudie A, Dynan L, Brady PW, Rettiganti M. Attributable cost and length of stay for central line-associated bloodstream infections. Pediatrics. 2014 Jun;133(6):e1525-32. doi: 10.1542/peds.2013-3795. Epub 2014 May 5. PMID: 24799537; PMCID: PMC4258643.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Interview patients, parents, and families on CHG bathing experience
Interview healthcare workers on CHG bathing experience
Develop interventions to improve the experience for both patients
Create educational materials for patients and families
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Eugenia Georges
Project Title
Transnational Medical Education and Maternity Care Reform in Greece
Project Description
Greece has one of the highest rates of cesarean birth in the world. My project examines the ENGAGE Trial, the first nation-wide initiative to introduce innovative protocols and training programs across Greece to reduce unnecessary cesareans. Launched in 2021, the initiative was designed by a largely transnational consortium of diasporic Greek obstetricians, most of whom left Greece after the economic crisis to train and work in the UK. The student will assist in the analysis of life history narratives of the obstetricians and other medical professionals in the UK and Greece who been instrumental in the design and implementation of the initiative.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Assist with literature review on global medical brain drain, doctor's educational and training experiences in the diaspora, return migration and impact of practices in the country of origin; coding and assist in qualitative analysis of interviews; possible co-authorship of articles based on the project.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Ilana Gershon
Project Title
The Pandemic Family
Project Description
I explore how US-American family dynamics shaped people’s responses to the pandemics, focusing on two aspects. First, I explore how particular structural roles in families shaped whose interpretation of Covid information would be acted upon. Second, I analyze how patterned forms of negotiations and decision-making within these families shaped people’s responses and interpretation to shifting medical information in the first two years of the pandemic. Using anthropological understandings of family decision-making as a starting point for understanding responses to medical knowledge, this research will offer an alternative understanding of health communication that situates the individual(s) in the network they are embedded in, and, in turn, enables more effective and active medical communication. The project highlights how socially intertwined people are as they disseminate and decide with others how to act upon the medical information they receive in culturally specific ways. My oral history interviews with families about their pandemic decisions revealed that the most pressing questions around how people responded to Covid-19 risks or government regulations were not whether or not individuals received clear medical information that they were equipped to interpret. Rather, people’s responses largely depended upon complex negotiations and decision-making within their families, shaped by cultural assumptions around who could tell another what to do. Any student researcher will learn qualitative techniques for analyzing people's interpretative strategies processing medical information.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
An undergraduate research assistant will code my interviews using Taquette, conduct literature review searches on the most recent publications about Covid’s effect on families, and record, clean up, and code AI-transcriptions of webinars oriented toward nannies.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Shannan Hamlin (Houston Methodist Hospital)
Project Title
Acute Care Delirium Through the Ages
Project Description
Research centered on delirium and interventions in the hospitalized patient has generally focused on the elderly population. However, patients of all ages are at risk for developing delirium while hospitalized due to change in environment, changes to sleep-wake cycle, medications, etc. A multi-center research proposal aims to understand the prevalence of delirium in hospitalized patients less than 70 years of age along with identifying risk factors and prevention strategies.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Students working on the research project would be responsible for reviewing patient medical records and interviewing patients about their experiences during hospitalization.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kirstin Matthews
Project Title
The Privilege of Medical Freedom
Project Description
The Medical Freedom Movement gained traction in the past two decades around discussions of healthcare autonomy and consent increased. Once considered a fringe movement, it has evolved as a key political topic. Vaccine mandates and access to unproven therapies in particular are highly contested issues with Medical Freedom advocates arguing that the individual’s right to make decisions for their own health is more important that public health and protections from the marketing of fraudulent health products. However, where does medical freedom begin and end? Who are promoting these ideas and who can access medical freedom? This project explores how medical freedom is discussed and defined by advocates and in the literature. The goal is to assess how one’s identity can shape the extent to which they can access medical freedom. Student researchers will assist Dr. Matthews and Baker researchers with a literature review, manuscript preparation, development of outreach materials, and other administrative tasks.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Student researchers will:
• Conduct literature reviews using PubMed or Google Scholar search engines;
• Analyze publications and new media on Medical Freedom;
• Help with manuscript preparation and editing;
• Develop outreach materials via Canva or Adobe Suite; and
• Conduct administrative tasks.
Past Medical Humanities Research Projects
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Travis Alexander
Project Title
Health Aesthetics: An Exhibit and Discussion on Art in the Medical Humanities
Project Description
In the late spring, Rice will host an event that combines a small art exhibit with an associated panel discussion of scholars on the role art can play in the medical humanities. It will be open to Rice and the Houston community. Student Researchers will assist me in planning, promoting, and coordinating the event.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
-Handle correspondence with the artist(s) and scholars
-Work with relevant Rice offices to book travel for visiting participants
-Handle logistics associated with hosting event (caterers, venue, etc)
-Help promote event/distribute promotional materials and flyers
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Raudel Avila
Project Title
Inclusive engineering design of bioelectronic form factors to monitor hypertension among US Hispanics/Latinos.
Project Description
Bioelectronic devices with soft mechanics, wireless connectivity, and electronic components that continuously track physiological signals can be placed epidermally on key locations to track hypertension and other cardiovascular risk factors. These devices, with form factors that rely on miniaturized geometries with soft-hard composite material architectures, aim to expand medical diagnostics capabilities beyond hospitals and clinics. However, the deployment of these devices is not homogenous as one size fits all patients type of approach. The cultural connection of technology and medicine in respective communities needs to be considered in the design to ensure patient adoption and continuous use. The prevalence of hypertension (30% of Hispanics have high blood pressure) and other cardiovascular diseases among Hispanic Americans makes diagnostic and treatment a critical need among the community where additional economic, language, and educational barriers increase the risk of accurate diagnostics and patient compliance. The student project will focus on identifying the key engineering design elements and proposing a conceptual design strategy that can eliminate one or multiple barriers to accelerate medical technology adoption among US Hispanics/Latinos for diagnostic and treatment of hypertension.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Literature Review, Drafting, Design, Creation of Slide Decks, Brainstorming, and Simulations.
Faculty Mentor: Drs. Natasha Afonso and Aarti Bavare (Texas Children's Hospital)
Project Title
Family and health caregiver perceptual impact on management of pediatric pain, sedation, delirium and withdrawal in critical ill children.
Project Description
Critically ill children admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) are very likely to need pain management and/ or sedation to accomplish clinical goals of critical care. The pain and sedative medications need to be judiciously used and weaned so that they do not allow for undue suffering or cause side effects and withdrawal syndrome. Critical illness and sedative medications also place the patients at risk of experiencing delirium (an uncomfortable state with alteration of attention, consciousness, and cognition, with a reduced ability to focus). The state makes patients not feel like normal people and impacts their response to therapies and eventual health outcomes.
Patients and family members are crucial partners of health caregivers in determining pain thresholds and diagnosing delirium. To treat patients and families as people there needs to be a strong collaborative relationship that health caregivers need to build with them to understand their preferences and develop a comprehensive shared responsibility plan for pain, sedation, delirium and withdrawal management. For both, health caregivers and patients' families; socio cultural backgrounds, prior experiences and beliefs guide assessment of pain and hence the response to mitigate it.
Our goal is to understand the spectrum of perceptions about pain, sedation, delirium, withdrawal management preferences that exist in our patient's families and nurses and understand the associations if any with their sociodemographic characteristics.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Development and implementation of a tool to interview nurses and patients/families to collect data on perceptions and preferences about pain, sedation, delirium and withdrawal
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Nirica Borges (Texas Children's Hospital)
Project Title
The impact of inclusion of personalized stories into the medical record.
Project Description
Understanding a patient’s values and preferences are key to providing high quality Patient Centered Care. Hospitalized patients may encounter dozens of healthcare providers, and hospital care teams face challenges in sharing complex clinical and non-clinical information over time. This project aims to address this deficit by creating a Narrative in the patient or family’s own words about their child. Students will develop a narrative of a hospitalized child’s story to share in the medical record, and assess the impact of this on clinical care teams. They will collaborate with children (if age appropriate) and families in developing a narrative of the child’s family life, likes and dislikes, daily routine, and anything else the family wishes is included. We will then survey healthcare providers to assess if the story was helpful to them in providing Patient Centered Care.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
- Develop “story” script with faculty team.
- Routines
- Likes
- Dislikes
- School
- Family structure
- Meet with and interview family, child (if age appropriate)
- Write up interview as the child’s story
- Review the writeup with family and finalize
- Develop a brief survey for clinical teams to assess if the story contributed to care
- Nursing
- Physicians
- APPs
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Marcia Brennan
Project Title
Deer Trails Through the Woods: A Neurocognitive Fairytale
Project Description
This Research Assistant position would provide assistance to the professor with a book project currently in development. Through an imaginative engagement with neuroaesthetics, this book presents the imagery of the forest as a creative metaphor for re-envisioning the structures of the human brain, the distressing mental health conditions of anxiety and OCD, and the process of finding a better pathway forward. By engaging these subjects, this book will contribute meaningfully to forging new pathways within the resonant fields of Aesthetics, Neuroaesthetics, Education, and Psychology. The student research portion is described below.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Undertaking research on cognitive science and neuroaesthetics; engaging in conversations with the professor on these topics; and producing original creative visual artworks (drawings and watercolors) relating to these themes.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kirstin Matthews
Project Title
Medical Interpreter Narratives
Project Description
Non-English speakers and those who have limited English proficiency often rely on the services of others to interpret what healthcare providers are telling them and to make their own needs and questions understood. These medical interpreters play a critical role in advancing the well-being of under-served, marginalized, or otherwise vulnerable people, but often face their own unique ethical challenges different from others in the healthcare system. This project will develop of an open-access collection of narratives from medical interpreters and host a workshop at Rice University to disseminate the collection.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Student interns will assist researchers wit h manuscript editing, development of outreach materials and other administrative activities associated with the narrative collection. Interns will also help with the planning a workshop to discuss and disseminate the narratives.
Faculty Mentor: Dr. Kirsten Ostherr
Project Title
AI for Health Equity
Project Description
Student researchers will work with Dr. Ostherr to identify, analyze and summarize AI for healthcare projects and their intended or likely impact on issues related to health equity and inequity. Additional work will involve interviews with patient advocates related to their perspectives on AI regulation. The resulting work will form a database and reports to be posted on the Medical Humanities Research Institute website, presented at conferences, and published in peer-reviewed journals.
Tasks the student would be expected to perform
Conduct literature reviews through PubMed and other library resources; conduct online research; analyze FDA AI/ML device approvals; analyze patent applications; analyze promotional materials posted online; conduct, record, and analyze interviews with AI/ML developers and with patient advocates; conduct, record, and analyze interviews with health professionals using AI/ML; conduct, record, and analyze interviews with health equity organizations; write summaries and syntheses of results; interpret results.