Internal Medicine Education Foundation, Inc.

The Department of Medicine is involved in a variety of clinical research projects that aim to add to our medical knowledge and improve patient care.

One of the major research efforts of the Department has involved documenting the extent of patient pain and other symptoms in hospitalized patients and devising methods to prevent and control these symptoms. Our faculty have published extensively on these topics and are presently preparing several research papers based on pain studies conducted at the Baroness Erlanger Hospital.

Another major effort has involved improving care at the end of life. Dr. Neema Doshi, the Chief of our Division of Research and President of the Tennessee End-of-Life Partnership, has surveyed physicians throughout Hamilton County concerning their comfort with and knowledge of end-of-life care. In conjunction with the Tennessee Department of Health, she has recently extended this survey to all the physicians in Tennessee.

Ethical research has also been an important area of interest. Based on Ethical Rounds that are conducted by the Department on a monthly basis, a survey was sent to doctors in Hamilton Count about the use of alcohol while they are on call and the results are being prepared for publication.

The Department is also interested in methodological issues involving the use of placebos in randomized controlled trials. Though placebo-controlled trials are considered give the most valid findings, there still are important questions to be answered about whether and how patients become "unblinded" in these trials and how unblinding effects research findings.

Our faculty and residents have also been involved in research to improve medical education and have recently done studies on what motivates faculty to teach and the qualities that a chief resident should possess.

Other ongoing studies by our faculty and residents include a randomized, placebo-controlled trial to try to decrease alcohol addiction in hospitalized patients, the response of dialysis patients to Hepatitis C vaccine, aspirin use in patients with myocardial infarction, and survival in patients who require cardiopulmonary resuscitation, among others.