One-Semester Practicum

MDHM 430 MEDICAL HUMANITIES PRACTICUM (ONE SEMESTER)

In this highly individualized course, students will spend one semester working with a mentor in an organization related to health and conduct their own research project. The organizations with which the mentors are affiliated will vary by semester and are listed below. Students learn about these organizations through assisting a mentor and conduct research into a medical humanities topic that will be presented to the public as a paper, presentation, website, exhibit, or other project.

Students might work alone with the partner organization or in a small group. Some students will spend several hours per week on site with their mentor, and others will work remotely. Note that the time spent with the mentor varies greatly by project. In general, however, the practicum should take approximately 8-10 hours/week including class meetings and completing class assignments.

Activities will vary according to the student’s work and interests but might involve conducting research and writing for publications, creating content for social media, conducting interviews, organizing and attending events and meetings, preparing strategies for public health awareness, etc.

For additional information, please contact Dr. Melissa Bailar.

How to enroll in the practicum

Students can use a single form to apply for multiple projects, including both one-semester and year-long practicum projects.

The Medical Humanities Program has decided to join a pilot of Rice XP. All declared MDHM minors should have received an email with login instructions. We are accepting practicum applications through RiceXP. If you are not a declared minor and did not receive the login instructions, please complete this form to be added to RiceXP (which takes 48 hours) and notify Fatima Bazan at fb55@rice.edu if you encounter any difficulties submitting your application. Log into Rice XP, look for the opportunity title "MDHM 430 Spring 2027: One-semester medical humanities practicum," and complete the form with the requested application materials. It is highly recommended that students apply for 3 or more projects to guarantee placement for the spring 2027 semester. Note your ranking of projects in the form (1= top choice). The deadline for applications is Monday, October 26, 2026, at 11:59 pm.

All applications will require:

1. A 250-word statement of interest for each project to which you are applying. The paragraph should indicate: Why you are interested in the particular project; any coursework, research, or experience that has contributed to your interest in the project; and of the skills that the project may have listed as necessary, which you have and which you will need to acquire.
2. A brief cover letter appropriate for all projects to which you are applying that indicates your areas of interest in medical humanities, any previous research experience, and any other relevant experience that prepares you for medical humanities research.
3. Resume
4. Unofficial transcript

MDHM 430 Practicum Options, Spring 2027

Independent Practicum - One semester or Year-long

Students may propose a practicum if they have made arrangements to work with an organization, hospital, or individual and will conduct research that relates to medical humanities (in terms of both methods and questions). The proposed practicum must include work with individuals outside of Rice for at least some of the time and have an experiential learning component. Students should expect to spend 8 hours a week on the work and reflective aspects of the practicum (the equivalent of 3 credit hours in an upper-level course), in addition to regular class meetings and meetings with the instructor.

Approval for independent projects to count as a practicum is a two- step process.

For the first step, in lieu of a cover letter, please submit a description of the experiential learning aspect the student will gain. This can take many forms, from working alongside archivists or policy writers, to providing patient care, to contributing to an established research project at a hospital (to mention a few examples). Indicate if the student will be joining a structured research endeavor undertaken by the partnering organization (i.e. an existing grant-funded project), if the student will be working on independent research of their own design, or something in-between. (approx. 250-300 words).

Students must include the contact information of the project PI or other mentor who has agreed to supervise the student’s work.

American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine - One semester, repeatable

Students in this practicum will spend about 4-5 hours per week shadowing practitioners and students at the American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (https://acaomhealthcare.com/). You will observe patients being treated and be paired with a mentor who can explain the treatments and answer questions you have about holistic medicine. Students must formulate their own research question to pursue, under the guidance of the practicum faculty. In addition, they will contribute to a literature review and interview practitioners to create informational materials for the College. Students will be required to complete some HIPAA online training (approximately 6 hours) before the semester begins.

Radiation Effects and Events - One semester, repeatable

Selected students will work with Dr. Armin Weinberg (https://profiles.rice.edu/faculty/armin-weinberg), faculty at Semey Medical University in Kazakhstan, librarians at the Texas Medical Center Library’s archives, and other individuals who have studied the health, social, political, and personal effects of radiation exposure from nuclear bombs (including their extensive testing in Kazakhstan), nuclear accidents, and nuclear waste. Depending on the status with Russia and Ukraine, students may talk with researchers there as well to learn about different approaches to medical treatment and obstacles to effective care. Students will assist with research into international medical partnerships; conduct interviews for the archive on radiation effects and events; work with authors on editing essays for journal publications; and/or other research-related tasks. Students will have the opportunity to talk and work with a range of experts from the U.S., Kazakhstan, Japan, and elsewhere. Students must have prior research experience in any discipline, strong organizational and time-management skills, and professional communication proficiency. This practicum may be taken for one or two semesters.

Speaking with One Voice - One semester, repeatable

Focus: Health Disparities, Oral History, and Community Advocacy

By addressing health disparities through collaboration across various sectors—including community advocates, researchers, and policymakers—the Intercultural Cancer Council (ICC) played a crucial role in shaping systemic change. Working with Dr. Armin Weinberg, students will capture oral histories from key figures involved in the ICC and assist in expanding the archived materials at the McGovern Historical Research Center (TMC Archives). This project deepens understanding of the intersection between healthcare policy, social justice, and community advocacy.

Student Responsibilities & Deliverables:

• Archival Research: Review the historical context of the Council and the roles of individuals within the ICC collections at the TMC Archives.
• Oral History: Prepare informed interview questions and create a structured interview guide that provides an overview of individual roles, experiences with specific initiatives, and key challenges faced.
• Digital Preservation: Prepare and format oral histories for inclusion in the digital archives.
• DAHSHA Connection: Develop a Translational Study Guide that connects the ICC’s historical archives to a contemporary health equity issue. High-quality guides may be selected for contribution to the Dialogues Across Health Science Humanities and the Archives (DAHSHA) at Rice and the McGovern Historical Center, bridging archival lessons with modern-day advocacy.

The Handbook of Texas Medicine - One semester, repeatable

Students in this practicum will research, write, and publish at least one entry for an online encyclopedia, The Handbook of Texas Medicine, and revise an existing article. Students may select a topic that has been identified as a priority for the handbook or may suggest a new one. Topics include the histories of hospitals and clinics (including those with non-Western approaches), health organizations, medical journals, remedies, and individual healthcare professionals. Of particular interest are histories of organizations providing healthcare to vulnerable populations. Students work closely with Dr. Bailar and the Handbook of Texas’ Managing Editor. Students may also meet with the head of the Texas Medical Center Library’s archives to learn archival research skills and explore relevant collections. Students will meet as needed with other community members who can contribute insights to their topics. Students must have strong writing and time management skills. This is designed as a one-semester practicum, but students may take it a second semester to complete another entry.

Diabetes Education in Faith Communities - One semester, repeatable

Are you passionate about health equity and/or community-based participatory research? The Center for Faith and Public Health (CFPH) at the Institute for Spirituality and Health (ISH) partners with and empowers faith communities to improve health outcomes among their congregations and promote a holistic approach to wellbeing.

Practicum students who select this topic will engage in meaningful qualitative research with faith community members and program facilitators participating in our diabetes education programs. The objective is to evaluate the impact of our community-based diabetes education program and understand individuals’ experiences of disease, health, and faith.

Research Process:
Diabetes management classes run concurrently on an approximate six-week rotation. The proposed workflow below is to guide students in fitting into that rotation throughout the semester. It is not intended as a strict schedule. Students may also need to be flexible if diabetes education program schedules should change.

Possible tasks:

Develop a focus group research protocol Administer/Facilitate focus group research

Participants will receive (approximately) bi-weekly virtual mentorship and guidance from ISH staff members, on weeks when their regular practicum class does not meet. Mentorship from ISH staff will cover all aspects of the project. Communication between meetings is always welcome.

• Analyze and present findings from focus group research
• Develop and/or refine program evaluation questionnaires
• Manage and Analyze questionnaire data

The Chabot Will See You Now: Concurrent Caregiver and Trainee Usage of Social Media, Technology, and AI Tools in Children with Systemic and Neuronal Inflammatory Conditions - Year-long

Institution and Location: Texas Children’s Hospital

Over 10 years ago Eric Topol, MD predicted a medical world where the patient’s journey would be democratized by easily accessible technology. The project mentor, Dr. Muscal, is a senior pediatric rheumatologist who has observed both caregiver and medical trainee utilization of “chatbots” daily. However, there currently is a paucity of literature on AI usage by parents of children with rare conditions.

During practicum, students will learn about how technology is changing paradigms of the doctor/patient/family relationship. They will assist the mentor in surveys of technology usage of trainees (pediatrics’ residents and BCM medical students) and the caregivers of children being assessed/treated for traditional rheumatic disorders and novel neuroinflammatory conditions. They will collect concurrent sets of surveys for the same caregiver/treatment team “dyad” and will compile descriptive statistics on technology usage and assess potential predictors of the usage in the pediatric rare disease “space”.

Survey questions asked will relate to the comfort and frequency of technology usage by caregivers and trainees (with focus on chatbots such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, MS Copilot, and OpenEvidence). The surveys will also investigate for which tasks these groups use such technology, the emotional consequences of technology usage (i.e. reducing or exacerbating anxiety), and awareness of how the others are using these technologies.

Students must demonstrate professionalism, compassion in interacting with caregivers of potentially ill children, excellent time management, and solid organization.

AI Patient Scoring in Infectious Disease Care

Institution: Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Baylor College of Medicine

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used in infectious disease care to predict whether patients will take medications as prescribed, attend clinical appointments, remain engaged in care, and successfully complete treatment by analyzing clinical, behavioral, and demographic data. These predictions can generate patient scores or classifications that inform clinical interventions and treatment decisions. Practicum students will work with Dr. Vishnu Subrahmanyam on a research project examining an ethical tension created by these systems: when does AI patient scoring shift from identifying patients who need support to restricting their access to care?

Students will receive training in systematic literature review, evidence synthesis, and interpretive analysis of healthcare AI, as well as foundational concepts in healthcare AI and infectious disease care, and bioethical approaches to interpreting algorithmic systems. They will contribute to a comprehensive literature review and evidence map of AI-enabled patient scoring across HIV, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, and other infectious diseases. They will identify what data are used to score patients, what outcomes are predicted, and how scores enter clinical decision-making. Drawing on bioethics and interpretive science and technology studies, students will analyze how categories such as "adherence," "risk," and "eligibility" are constructed within these systems and how social and structural barriers can become translated into individualized assessments of patients.

With mentorship, each student will develop a focused research question from the larger evidence base and produce an individual scholarly output, such as a research poster, evidence visualization, research brief, or paper, with opportunities to contribute to conference

Organ Transplant Digital Storytelling Project

Institution: Houston Methodist Hospital, Waterman Lab for Patient Engagement Research

The Waterman Lab is a national consortium of experts in the field of transplant and health literacy with a mission to empower transplant patients and living donors by providing them with the knowledge and resources they need to make informed treatment choices. The Living Donation Storytelling Project, an online digital library, includes over 300 culturally diverse stories from people sharing their living kidney donation and living donor transplant experiences.

Students will join a vibrant research team and choose among research projects examining motivations for becoming a living donor, barriers to donating, spiritual and ethical aspects of living donor transplants, and others. Possible research tasks may include qualitative coding and analysis of patient and donor stories; developing and conducting focus groups to determine effective digital storytelling practices, writing a literature review of humanities and social science articles or memoirs on storytelling in medicine and/or organ donation and transplants, and developing educational resources, though actual tasks will vary by semester. Students will also complete common readings examining organ donation through historical, emotional, and ethical lenses; receive training in necessary software (for example, qualitative coding software) and methods; meet with healthcare professionals, researchers and advocates; and visit Houston Methodist Hospital’s Transplant Center to gain insights into the broader context of living organ donations and patient experiences.

By the end of the semester, students will complete a project for the lab and resources for patients or donors and present their work at Houston Methodist. Students will gain applied medical humanities skills in research design, narrative and qualitative analysis, synthesizing interdisciplinary perspectives, and creating public-facing resources for different audiences.

How to Propose a Project for Practicum Students

Health institutions and community partners interested in mentoring a student may submit a project that has a clear medical humanities component. The community partner submission form will be posted on this page in September for spring semester projects and in February for fall semester projects. When students apply to your project, you may review their application materials and request interviews, but please do not make students an offer. The Medical Humanities Program will determine project assignments based on your ranking of students and on student rankings of projects, as well as distribution across projects. Please submit project proposals through this form:

PI Form

Academic Year 2026-2027 ongoing MDHM 402 and MDHM 430 projects

Independent Practicum - One semester or Year-long

Students may propose a practicum if they have made arrangements to work with an organization, hospital, or individual and will conduct research that relates to medical humanities (in terms of both methods and questions). The proposed practicum must include work with individuals outside of Rice for at least some of the time and have an experiential learning component. Students should expect to spend 8 hours a week on the work and reflective aspects of the practicum (the equivalent of 3 credit hours in an upper-level course), in addition to regular class meetings and meetings with the instructor.

Approval for independent projects to count as a practicum is a two- step process.

For the first step, in lieu of a cover letter, please submit a description of the experiential learning aspect the student will gain. This can take many forms, from working alongside archivists or policy writers, to providing patient care, to contributing to an established research project at a hospital (to mention a few examples). Indicate if the student will be joining a structured research endeavor undertaken by the partnering organization (i.e. an existing grant-funded project), if the student will be working on independent research of their own design, or something in-between. (approx. 250-300 words).

Students must include the contact information of the project PI or other mentor who has agreed to supervise the student’s work.

Medical Humanities faculty will contact students about proposed independent projects to request further information after an initial review.

American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine - One semester, repeatable

Students in this practicum will spend about 4-5 hours per week shadowing practitioners and students at the American College of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (https://acaomhealthcare.com/). You will observe patients being treated and be paired with a mentor who can explain the treatments and answer questions you have about holistic medicine. Students must formulate their own research question to pursue, under the guidance of the practicum faculty. In addition, they will contribute to a literature review and interview practitioners to create informational materials for the College. Students will be required to complete some HIPAA online training (approximately 6 hours) before the semester begins.

Radiation Effects and Events - One semester, repeatable

Selected students will work with Dr. Armin Weinberg (https://profiles.rice.edu/faculty/armin-weinberg), faculty at Semey Medical University in Kazakhstan, librarians at the Texas Medical Center Library’s archives, and other individuals who have studied the health, social, political, and personal effects of radiation exposure from nuclear bombs (including their extensive testing in Kazakhstan), nuclear accidents, and nuclear waste. Depending on the status with Russia and Ukraine, students may talk with researchers there as well to learn about different approaches to medical treatment and obstacles to effective care. Students will assist with research into international medical partnerships; conduct interviews for the archive on radiation effects and events; work with authors on editing essays for journal publications; and/or other research-related tasks. Students will have the opportunity to talk and work with a range of experts from the U.S., Kazakhstan, Japan, and elsewhere. Students must have prior research experience in any discipline, strong organizational and time-management skills, and professional communication proficiency. This practicum may be taken for one or two semesters.

Speaking with One Voice - One semester, repeatable

Focus: Health Disparities, Oral History, and Community Advocacy

By addressing health disparities through collaboration across various sectors—including community advocates, researchers, and policymakers—the Intercultural Cancer Council (ICC) played a crucial role in shaping systemic change. Working with Dr. Armin Weinberg, students will capture oral histories from key figures involved in the ICC and assist in expanding the archived materials at the McGovern Historical Research Center (TMC Archives). This project deepens understanding of the intersection between healthcare policy, social justice, and community advocacy.

Student Responsibilities & Deliverables:

• Archival Research: Review the historical context of the Council and the roles of individuals within the ICC collections at the TMC Archives.
• Oral History: Prepare informed interview questions and create a structured interview guide that provides an overview of individual roles, experiences with specific initiatives, and key challenges faced.
• Digital Preservation: Prepare and format oral histories for inclusion in the digital archives.
• DAHSHA Connection: Develop a Translational Study Guide that connects the ICC’s historical archives to a contemporary health equity issue. High-quality guides may be selected for contribution to the Dialogues Across Health Science Humanities and the Archives (DAHSHA) at Rice and the McGovern Historical Center, bridging archival lessons with modern-day advocacy.

The Handbook of Texas Medicine - One semester, repeatable

Students in this practicum will research, write, and publish at least one entry for an online encyclopedia, The Handbook of Texas Medicine, and revise an existing article. Students may select a topic that has been identified as a priority for the handbook or may suggest a new one. Topics include the histories of hospitals and clinics (including those with non-Western approaches), health organizations, medical journals, remedies, and individual healthcare professionals. Of particular interest are histories of organizations providing healthcare to vulnerable populations. Students work closely with Dr. Bailar and the Handbook of Texas’ Managing Editor. Students may also meet with the head of the Texas Medical Center Library’s archives to learn archival research skills and explore relevant collections. Students will meet as needed with other community members who can contribute insights to their topics. Students must have strong writing and time management skills. This is designed as a one-semester practicum, but students may take it a second semester to complete another entry.

History of Medicine and Faith in the Texas Medical Center - ISH - One semester, repeatable

The Institute for Spirituality and Health is a founding member institution of the Texas Medical Center. The people who developed this, the largest medical center in the world, ensured that faith and spirituality were represented and promoted here from the very beginning.

Students who choose this topic will have the opportunity to design their own historical research project based primarily on the Institute’s modest historical archive, much of which was recently digitized. Drawing upon newsletters, meeting minutes, and other resources, students can pose and pursue original historical questions about the relationship between medicine and religion in this extraordinary place and enhance our understanding of the contexts, concerns, innovations, pressures, and resources that have shaped this institution over the past seventy years. Students will develop archival research skills, including digitization, identifying and investigating historical questions, analyzing texts and graphic documents. Research progress and results may be presented in a slide presentation, poster, or scholarly written format allowing for further skills-building in digital media, graphic design, and academic writing. At the end of the semester, students will report on the progress and results of their research to a diverse audience of stakeholders at the Institute during our end-of-semester luncheon.

Participants will receive (approximately) bi-weekly virtual mentorship and guidance from ISH staff members, on weeks when their regular practicum class does not meet. Mentorship from ISH staff will cover all aspects of the project. Communication between meetings is always welcome.

Diabetes Education in Faith Communities - One semester, repeatable

Are you passionate about health equity and/or community-based participatory research? The Center for Faith and Public Health (CFPH) at the Institute for Spirituality and Health (ISH) partners with and empowers faith communities to improve health outcomes among their congregations and promote a holistic approach to wellbeing.

Practicum students who select this topic will engage in meaningful qualitative research with faith community members and program facilitators participating in our diabetes education programs. The objective is to evaluate the impact of our community-based diabetes education program and understand individuals’ experiences of disease, health, and faith.

Research Process:
Diabetes management classes run concurrently on an approximate six-week rotation. The proposed workflow below is to guide students in fitting into that rotation throughout the semester. It is not intended as a strict schedule. Students may also need to be flexible if diabetes education program schedules should change.

Possible tasks:

• Develop a focus group research protocol
• Administer/Facilitate focus group research
• Analyze and present findings from focus group research
• Develop and/or refine program evaluation questionnaires
• Manage and Analyze questionnaire data

Participants will receive (approximately) bi-weekly virtual mentorship and guidance from ISH staff members, on weeks when their regular practicum class does not meet. Mentorship from ISH staff will cover all aspects of the project. Communication between meetings is always welcome.

Mental Health Research and Education - Year-long

The Veterans Administration (VA) has a strong commitment to improving Veterans’ mental health while supporting mental health clinicians. The South Central Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Centers (SC MIRECC) focuses on promoting equity in engagement, access, and quality of mental health care for Veterans facing barriers to care, especially rural and underserved Veterans. The SC MIRECC’s mission works synergistically with the VA’s commitment to improve mental health care by developing and disseminating evidence based educational material, tools and interventions that focus on improving mental health care.

This research opportunity is specifically with the education core of the SC MIRECC. Examples of recent projects with undergraduate interns include: creation of the Veterans Wellness Guide, A Veteran's Guide to Discussing STORES: Secure Storage to Reduce Suicide Risk and development of a cultural humility geriatric education module. The interprofessional education team has members from: Psychiatry, Social Psychology, and Clinical Psychology. The student would be involved in the development of educational materials along with their dissemination and evaluation. There are ample opportunities for students to write mentored manuscripts and poster presentations. Students can learn more about the educational efforts of the SC MIRECC by visiting the site, http://www.mirecc.va.gov/visn16/education.asp

Possible tasks:

• Lit review
• Educational content creation
• Manuscript/poster presentation creation

This project presents an opportunity to advance the student’s skills with creation of educational materials, dissemination, evaluation, and scholarly writing. Students will also be exposed to the current mental health research. Students will have opportunities for manuscript writing and presentations.

Productive Disagreement: Exploring Conflict, Collaboration, and Innovation in a High-Performing Multidisciplinary Heart Center - Year-long

This project at Texas Children's Hospital explores how clinicians in a high-performing multidisciplinary heart center navigate differing clinical perspectives when caring for patients with complex cardiac disease. Advanced cardiac care frequently involves uncertainty, rapidly evolving therapies, and contributions from multiple specialties, including cardiology, cardiac surgery, cardiac intensive care, anesthesia, and nursing. In these settings, differing opinions about diagnosis, management, or candidacy for advanced therapies are common and often necessary to refine decision-making and advance patient care. While conflict in healthcare is often framed negatively, this project examines how constructive disagreement can function as an important feature of collaborative practice in complex medical environments.

The larger research study will use narrative interviews with multidisciplinary clinicians to explore how disagreement emerges, how teams interpret and manage these moments, and how differing perspectives ultimately shape clinical decisions. The student would focus on obtaining narratives from clinicians, analyzing how clinicians describe disagreement, authority and collaboration.

Possible tasks:

• Conduct background literature review related to conflict in healthcare environments.
• Develop semi-structured interviews
• Conduct in-depth interviews with clinicians to describe conflict situations, what happened and what worked to provide qualitative data and practical insights.
• Analyze interviews to identify codes and themes through qualitative data analysis.

Previous interviewing experience or experience with coding and conducting thematic analysis of qualitative data would be helpful.

The student will gain experience in medical humanities and qualitative research methods, including literature review, narrative analysis, and thematic coding of interview data. The student will explore how clinicians describe and interpret disagreement in a multidisciplinary heart center, gaining insight into the cultural, ethical, and relational aspects of complex medical decision-making. This work will deepen the student’s understanding of how language, professional identity, and institutional culture shape communication and collaboration in high-stakes clinical environments. The student would work towards abstract presentation at a national conference and manuscript publication.

The Chabot Will See You Now: Concurrent Caregiver and Trainee Usage of Social Media, Technology, and AI Tools in Children with Systemic and Neuronal Inflammatory Conditions - Year-long

Institution and Location: Texas Children’s Hospital

Over 10 years ago Eric Topol, MD predicted a medical world where the patient’s journey would be democratized by easily accessible technology. The project mentor, Dr. Muscal, is a senior pediatric rheumatologist who has observed both caregiver and medical trainee utilization of “chatbots” daily. However, there currently is a paucity of literature on AI usage by parents of children with rare conditions.

During practicum, students will learn about how technology is changing paradigms of the doctor/patient/family relationship. They will assist the mentor in surveys of technology usage of trainees (pediatrics’ residents and BCM medical students) and the caregivers of children being assessed/treated for traditional rheumatic disorders and novel neuroinflammatory conditions. They will collect concurrent sets of surveys for the same caregiver/treatment team “dyad” and will compile descriptive statistics on technology usage and assess potential predictors of the usage in the pediatric rare disease “space”.

Survey questions asked will relate to the comfort and frequency of technology usage by caregivers and trainees (with focus on chatbots such as Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, MS Copilot, and OpenEvidence). The surveys will also investigate for which tasks these groups use such technology, the emotional consequences of technology usage (i.e. reducing or exacerbating anxiety), and awareness of how the others are using these technologies.

Students must demonstrate professionalism, compassion in interacting with caregivers of potentially ill children, excellent time management, and solid organization.

Examining the Role of Narrative Medicine in the Care of Children with Complex Illness - Year-long

Project Sponsor(s): Daniel P. Mahoney, MD and Amanda Ruth, MD

Project Title: Examining the Role of Narrative Medicine in the Care of Children with Complex Illness

Institution and Location: Texas Children’s Hospital, 6621 Fannin St W1990, Houston, TX 77030

Project Description: Dr. Ruth and Dr. Mahoney are working on several educational initiatives with pediatric residency and fellowship trainees involving the use of narrative medicine. Narrative medicine practice confers a skill set to clinicians that strengthens their ability to recognize, absorb, interpret, and be moved by the stories of their patients. This skill set has been shown to improve clinician resiliency in the face of burnout, increase clinician empathy, and improve attention to nonverbal cues. Ongoing projects include: •

BCM Pediatrics residency Leadership, Advocacy and Development (LEAD) track narrative medicine curriculum for advocacy and resilience

BCM Hospice and Palliative Medicine fellowship and Critical Care fellowship narrative medicine curricula for increasing empathy in clinical practice

BCM Pediatric Scientist Training and Development Program narrative medicine curriculum for professional identity formation

Expected Tasks:. Students will be asked to contribute to a variety of tasks involved in translating educational activities into research projects. These may include literature reviews, contributing to drafting of IRB research proposals, participation in consenting and enrolling patients, caregivers and/or trainees in IRB-approved projects, and (when applicable based on training and expertise) contribute to qualitative data collection and analysis.

A list of specific skills or training the student(s) should have before beginning the project. Students with a focus in medical humanities, pre-medical studies, adult education, or scientific writing/health communication would likely find this opportunity beneficial and interesting. Students should be enthusiastic, organized, self-motivated, adaptable, professional, and have strong writing skills.

Project timeframe (1 or 2 semesters): 2 semester preferred

Patient Priorities Care: Improving Clinical Outcomes in Primary Care - Year-long

Institution and Location: Institute on Aging, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston with field locations at the School of Public Health and McGovern Medical School.

Project Description: Patient Priorities Care (PPC) is a novel approach to caring for older adults with multiple chronic conditions. Heralded in 2018 as a “revolutionary change in health care delivery” by the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (2018), Patient Priorities Care has become a standard of age-friendly care over the last several years in geriatric care settings. PPC deftly addresses the inherent complexity of patients with multiple chronic conditions without sacrificing quality of care. Publications over the last few years established the feasibility of implementation of the PPC approach and a recent randomized clinical trial across several VA health systems.

The lab is completing additional analysis of the VA randomized trial with some opportunities for engagement by students. We are also using Artificial Intelligence Agents which can assist the Patient Priorities Care during the process of identifying patients’ health priorities. Students may have the opportunity in some of the field testing and evaluation of the AI agent tools with surgery and primary care patient settings.

Students may be involved in some of the following tasks:

• Communication with primary care stakeholders and participants
• Evaluation of research hypotheses
• Quantitative data analysis of adverse events, medications, clinical service usage, and Veteran self-reported outcomes (treatment burden, collaboration, social support)
• Qualitative coding and analysis of research transcripts (PCP recordings, summative implementation evaluations)
• Technology assessment and usability testing and evaluation processes
• Scholarship opportunities- authorship on research manuscripts

A list of specific skills or training the student(s) should have before beginning the project.

Students with the following interests/experience might consider this project, although anyone interested in chronic disease and biopsychosocial model of medical care would be a reasonable fit: psychology or social science majors (sociology), communication (health communication), human factors design and technology assessment (computer science or engineering) or philosophy (applied). Students should be enthusiastic, organized, detail-oriented, self-motivated, punctual, professional, willing to be flexible and adaptable, and have excellent communication skills.

Project timeframe: 2 semesters

Ethical Legal Implications of Psychedelics in Society - Year-long

Psychedelic medicines could profoundly and positively transform healthcare by providing breakthrough therapies to meet the growing mental health and suicide crisis among Veterans and civilians alike. Studies have found that psychedelic therapy improves the debilitating effects of various psychiatric conditions (e.g., depression, anxiety, eating disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder). In 2017 and 2019, the U.S. FDA designated psilocybin and MDMA “breakthrough therapies” for depression and PTSD, respectively. In 2024 Lykos Therapeutics submitted the first New Drug Application for MDMA-assisted therapy, which was not approved by the FDA. Meanwhile, states are getting involved. From 2019-2022, 25 states considered 74 bills to either reform existing laws and/or conduct further research on psychedelics. Many believe we are in the midst of a psychedelic renaissance, and there is an urgent need to address ethical and legal issues related to psychedelic research and use.

The Ethical Legal Implications of pSychedelics in Society (ELIPSIS) Program is part of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. As part of this program, we will be conducting interviews with participants in psychedelic clinical trials to understand their experiences, exploring how group-based psychedelic assisted-therapy could be optimized, and working to develop consensus best practice guidelines for psychedelic retreat organizations.

Expected Tasks:

• Conduct literature review with annotated bibliography and memo summarizing and interpreting findings
• Online data collection and analysis
• Document review and analysis
• Participate in analysis of qualitative interviews

A list of specific skills or training the student(s) should have before beginning the project.

• Organized
• Experience conducting literature reviews
• Good interpersonal skills
• Good analytic skills
• Good written and verbal communication skills

Project timeframe (1 or 2 semesters): 2 semesters

See a listing of previous projects >