Research and scholarship

Geisinger Commonwealth students have many opportunities to engage in research and scholarship throughout their education. The Office of Research and Scholarship offers short- and long-term research programs, like the Summer Research Immersion Program (SRIP) and the Medical Research Honors Program (MRHP). In addition, SRIP gives stipends to 65 preclinical students to engage in summer research each year. Projects are conducted over eight weeks in the summer after the first year of medical school. Throughout SRIP, students work directly with a faculty mentor and a research team on specific projects that include scientific research aimed at improving health in the laboratory setting or in a community setting, doing public health, community and clinical research that solve problems like access to care. As part of SRIP, students must submit an abstract and share their research findings with the community as an oral or poster presentation at the Summer Research Symposium. MRHP is a long-term research program that advances a student’s fundamental scientific knowledge, refines their scholarly communication and fosters a mindset of lifelong learning. Program participants submit a research project proposal, write a thesis and deliver an oral defense to complete the 4-year program. The research experience is guided by a research mentor, a thesis advisory committee and the program manager. Additionally, students write abstracts, present posters and publish findings while building their thesis defense. Participating students who meet all program requirements will graduate with an honors distinction. Students are provided multiple occasions to present and publish their research findings, including presenting at the annual Spring Research Symposium or submitting their scholarly and creative work for publication in Geisinger Commonwealth’s Journal for Scholarly Research in Progress (SCRIP). This journal is published annually in both print and online mediums and is edited and produced with the assistance of student editors engaged in the editorial process. go.geisinger.edu/res

MyCode: Personalizing healthcare

Geisinger’s research theme is to personalize healthcare by discovering ways to empower doctors to discern differences in patients — genetic, environmental or social — that impact quality and outcomes. Anchoring this theme is the MyCode® Community Health Initiative, a systemwide biobank storing blood and other samples for research use. MyCode analyzes the DNA of volunteers and has surpassed its latest goal of 250,000 participants. Researchers use this vast body of data to transform knowledge of the genome into powerful intelligence that is personally relevant to individual patients. MyCode research has already been translated into ways to diagnose certain medical conditions earlier, even before symptoms appear, and to implement new treatments or medications to manage them.