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Kristy Shine, MD, PhD, is JABSOM's new Director of Medical Student Research. She takes over for Dr. Russell Woo, who became JABSOM's Associate Dean for Clinical Programs (at Hawaiʻi Pacific Health). Dr. Shine is a physician-scientist with expertise in medical research education who is excited to expand and support medical student engagement in research activities.
Q: What does the role of a Medical Student Research Director entail?
A: The primary role of the Medical Student Research Director at JABSOM is to oversee and support medical student research engagement. More than 95% of our students participate in research activities during their 4 years at JABSOM. Providing leadership and strategic vision for scholarly education, the Director facilitates the integration of research-based activities into the medical curriculum and coordinates medical student participation in local and extramural research opportunities. The Director works with the clinical department chairs to identify potential faculty mentors for medical student research projects and provides faculty training and support. Student mentorship is also a big part of the role, helping our students to identify research interests, find available projects, and connect with individual faculty mentors.
Q: This is very important in this day and age, where you see a lot of emphasis being put on research as students apply for residency programs. When did that happen?
A: Agree, our students are constantly looking ahead to their next steps in training and it’s important that we work with them to ensure their successful progression. While research has always been a way to develop important skills for a career in medicine, we saw an uptick in medical student interest after the USMLE Step 1 exam moved from a numerically-graded to pass/fail exam in 2022. Because residency programs now take a more holistic approach when evaluating applicants, our students are seeking ways to distinguish themselves outside of their clinical performance by demonstrating leadership and scholarship. Participating in research is a fantastic way to show both! Medicine has also consistently been moving in the direction of an evidence-based practice. Students see the importance of being able to decipher which research to trust and apply to patient care. Getting them involved in the research process early can help them feel comfortable making those decisions whether or not they actively continue inquiry.
Q: Research can be intimidating for a new student. What tips would you give to someone who has never done research?
A: You are not alone and many of your classmates feel the same! Research is all about exploring what we don’t know yet and that can naturally be a bit intimidating. To make it more comfortable and manageable, we have established a step-wise system that can help students hit the ground running. All of our students complete CITI research training early in their first year, ensuring they have foundational knowledge. We also offer application-based exercises to practice research skills as part of our curriculum, so I’d encourage beginners to lean into the process of making mistakes and asking questions in that safe space. My additional advice to new students would be to seek out allies as they begin their research journey. This could be students in the class or two above, faculty mentors they are already connected to (learning communities mentors are great!), departmental research coordinators, and faculty actively conducting research (they were once in your shoes!). Our prior Director, Dr. Russell Woo did a fantastic job creating a medical student research website that gives students an initial approach on how to get involved (https://jabsom.hawaii.edu/research/trainees/medical-students-research/index.html) and we are continuing to expand on that. Our students can find contact information for the designated research coordinators in each department, who help students get connected to projects and mentors. Finally, the JABSOM Research Interest Group (JRIG) student leaders are incredibly knowledgeable about the local on-the-ground medical student research experience and are easily approachable.
Q: This job essentially has two roles in one. You're working with medical students, but you're also working with our faculty to develop mentors for our students. How do you plan to do that?
A: My role with University Health Partners of Hawaii as Director of Clinical Research Faculty Development is closely intertwined with the JABSOM Medical Student Research Director position. We want both our students and faculty to feel supported in working together as medical student research expands. The dual position allows me to help our medical school create new curricular programming to prepare our students for research, our faculty to expand opportunities to our students with medical student mentorship training and additional resources, and our students to more efficiently and effectively pair with research projects and mentors through an improved matching process. We have a wonderful community of people here who have been very supportive of this integrated approach. I really have to give a shout-out to our clinical and basic science chairs, designated research coordinators, and our JABSOM faculty and leadership. They recognize the need to come together to mutually develop our students and research faculty in order to provide the best possible care to our patients and community.
Q: Research can take on many forms. There's community-based research, bench research, and clinical research, and you've done research in the bioengineering field. What type of research can students get involved in?
A: There are many basic science, clinical/translational, quality improvement, and medical education research projects already ongoing in many different specialties in our community and this list is expanding! Part of my role will be to discover our existing research strengths, identify areas for collaboration and growth across our medical school and hospital systems, and find research partnerships outside of our community to support students who might not yet find their area of interest locally. We really want students to follow their unique passions. By supporting our students to be critical consumers, producers, and disseminators of new healthcare knowledge in an area they care about, we invest in both their personal fulfillment, career longevity, and professional impact.
Q: Where will this research be showcased?
A: We hope that our students will showcase their research experiences in a variety of settings. Our annual Biomedical Symposium is a great forum to share information to a diverse audience whereas individual departmental research days allow students to share with speciality-specific colleagues. We encourage our students to participate in both, as well as national and international research conferences. Another forum to share their research findings is through journal publications. Each offers development of unique communication and networking skills and the variety accommodates students in various stages of the medical education process. For example, first and second year students might be more inclined to present at a conference during dedicated breaks in the curriculum whereas 3rd and fourth year students on busy clinical rotations might find writing manuscripts on their own time more manageable. We want to help our students find that sweet spot of balancing scholarly inquiry with their medical education and multiple options help.
Q: Let's talk a bit about your career as you’ve had a unique path that’s enabled you to work at the intersection of clinical care, research, design, and education. You are one of the rare physician-scientists who pursued research and medical education, and you started by becoming a scientist first. Can you share your path to medicine?
A: It’s been an incredible journey and I feel so lucky to have an interdisciplinary career. It's busy at times but incredibly rewarding. Unlike physician scientists who do a traditional dual MD-PhD degree program simultaneously, I pursued a research career and completed my Masters and dual PhD programs first and then went to medical school. After studying biomedical engineering as an undergraduate, I worked in the medical device industry Johnson & Johnson creating medical devices and implants for the spine and was inspired to go to graduate school to study tissue engineering to create more advanced options through tissue regeneration. The Health Sciences and Technology program I attended was a joint venture between MIT and Harvard medical school that involved a year plus of medical school coursework and clinical rotations in order to create engineers who could speak the language of medicine, feel comfortable in clinical environments, interact with physicians in order to feel confident designing relevant products and processes for healthcare’s challenges. The byproduct is that you are immersed in the medical world and I fell in love with patient care! Talking story with patients gave a whole new meaning to what I was working on scientifically and offered the balance of being able to contribute to treating the patient or problem in front of me at that moment versus being able to change healthcare in the long run through research. There's an amazing synergy between what medicine and research can teach each other. So, I decided to go to medical school after completing my PhD and joined the 5 year Physician Scientist Training Program at the University of Pittsburgh.
Q: What did your research cover?
A: My early research was in spinal hardware and then tissue-engineering for the spine, but this quickly broadened into a more general interest in scaffolds (aka 3D structures) for cell-based tissue regeneration and wound healing. I studied stem cells and other elements of the growth environment that affect how those cells mature into the cell-types that ultimately form our bones, cartilage etc. Along the way I also became interested in teaching and medical education. After graduating residency I became a co-director in the Health Design Lab at Thomas Jefferson University, a creative makerspace and educational lab that, among other projects, was interested in 3D models. We studied the use of 3D printed models made from patient CT and MRI data in planning before surgeries, decision making in the OR, training for medical students and residents, and educating patients in the process of signing consents for surgery. I even partnered and extended this research into the veterinary space, because our pets need enhanced surgeries too! When the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, I shifted to a clinical research project studying the use of 3D printed covid swabs as a potential alternative when the standard flocked nasal swabs became unavailable. After covid, I was able to spin off my own bioprinting laboratory, combining the tissue engineering I had studied in graduate school with 3D printing, this time making 3D models out of biological materials for cell-based research. Eventually, I would love to see 3D models made out of living tissues that could be used for medical education and training!
Q: On the clinical side, you're doing Emergency Medicine at Queen's. Are you still doing research?
A: Based on the structure of emergency medicine practice here, I had to pause research activity during my first 2 years here and pitch in to work full-time clinically while we’ve been short on physicians in Hawaiʻi. I've been fortunate to participate in the Learning Communities educational program here and volunteer with the MIND Hawaiʻi program and help guide students interested in learning how to create new medical devices and technologies. I haven’t forgotten about research and coupling that with an expertise in design thinking, I hope to reestablish research and a design lab here for students at JABSOM here as time allows. I really think it's worthwhile to delay a little bit longer in order to pursue this role as Medical Student Research Director. Imagine if we can train all of our students to feel empowered to do research and solve challenges in healthcare. That would be a tremendous win for our patients.
Q: This role is a great way to stay in touch with your research side!
A: Exactly. Again, I think that for a lot of people, the idea of research is intimidating but it doesn't have to be. It can be exciting and rewarding, especially when it's a problem you are passionate about. There's research in many, many forms and that’s what I want our students to see. Research is all about seeing a problem or a challenge in the world around you and then using a structured approach to gain the insights and data needed to figure out and solve that particular challenge. That can be done at so many levels. I see my role helping to bolster the wonderful things we already have started in research here and expand and explore new ways for our students to get involved. Even that process can be medical education research so it's never far from my thoughts.