Medical Student Research Fellowship for Summer 2005

Mentor: Dr. Edward Livingston, M.D.
Department: Surgery
Room number: E7.126
Mail Code: 9156
Phone number: 214-648-7956
E-mail: edward.livingston@utsouthwestern.edu
Project title: Epidemiology of Appendicitis and Appendectomy in the United States

Human subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): N/A

Animal subjects IRB approved project number (where applicable): N/A

Project Type: Patient based research

Brief Description of Project:

The investigations will examine the epidemiology of appendicitis as well as time related changes in treatment patterns. Appendicitis is one of the most common diseases treated by general surgeons, however, little is known about the impact newer technologies have had on the disease. For instance, not too many years ago, 20% negative appendectomy rates for women were considered standard because of the difficulty in establishing the diagnosis relative to other causes of abdominal pain in women. Recently newer technology, such as ultrasonography and computed tomography have improved the ability to discern the causes of abdominal pain and might have caused a reduction in the negative appendectomy rate. Prior epidemiological studies have suggested that newer technologies have not improved upon the negative appendectomy rate. However, the data that was analyzed was not very current. Additionally, laparoscopic approaches to surgery have expanded greatly but have not been uniformly embraced by the surgical community. The impact laparoscopic approaches have had for treatment of appendicitis and will be the subject of this investigation as will be the coursing of time trends for the incidence of negative appendectomies. The study will use the national hospital discharge Summary for the years 1979-2002 as well as the National Inpatient Survey for the years 2001-2002 to investigate these phenomena.

Previous Research Activities or Publications with Medical Students:

Dr. Livingston had mentored numerous students while at UCLA. Examples include John Rosler who worked with Dr. Livingston, from his undergraduate years throughout medical school during this otolaryngology residency. Ultimately he elected to pursue private practice in otolaryngology.

Another is Sergio Huerta who began to work with Dr. Livingston in his first week of medical school remains closely associated with Dr. Livingston's laboratory, did a research fellowship with Dr. Livingston and will went on to complete his surgical residency at UC Irvine and will be joining us on the UT Southwestern faculty in July of 2005.

Each of these individuals published papers, book chapters, etc.

Having only been at UT Southwestern a short period of time, Dr. Livingston has not previously mentored medical students but has mentored an undergraduate student. Jordie Miller, a Stanford undergraduate, has completed two research projects. One haws culminated in a first author publication as well as a presentation at a regional meeting and another that she will be second author on. A third paper that has been submitted for publication.

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