LECOM Scholars Examine Key Aspects of COVID-19 Related to Older Adults

Zainab Shahid Fourth-year, LECOM at Seton Hill medical student, Zainab Shahid, teamed with Brendan McClafferty and Douglas Kepko, third-year medical students at LECOM Erie, to publish a review article addressing the transmission, symptomatology, and mortality of COVID-19 as they relate to older adults. Zainab Shahid, a native of Queens, New York, completed her core clinical rotations at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Binghamton, New York. This summer, she will begin her residency training in internal medicine at Rowan University in Stratford, New Jersey. Hailing from Bethesda, Maryland, 27-year-old Brendan McClafferty met Kansas City, Kansas native, Douglas Kepko while studying in the Problem Based Learning (PBL) Pathway at LECOM. The two have worked closely ever since. McClafferty is undertaking clinical rotations at the Western Maryland Health System. Shahid was introduced to McClafferty and Kepko by an attending physician who also works at the Western Maryland Health System. The trio was keenly interested in the alarmingly high mortality rate of COVID-19 in older adults; and together, they decided to review the current literature and distill from it a concise review of the topic.

Brendan McClafferty The report, published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society and entitled, COVID-19 and Older Adults: What We Know, cogently summarized a broad range of Coronavirus studies that show worse outcomes and higher mortality rates in older adults and in those with comorbidities such as hypertension, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and chronic kidney disease. A significant percentage of older American adults have these diseases, placing them at a higher risk of infection. The abstract further assessed the fact that many adults with hypertension, diabetes, and chronic kidney disease are placed on angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs). The report highlighted studies that have shown that these medications increase the processing rate of the ACE-2 receptor, the very receptor that the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus uses to enter host cells, which places older adults at a further increased risk of infection. In abbreviated format, the article clearly delineated the symptoms exhibited by affected individuals and the attendant percentages of those presenting with those symptoms. In the article, the co-authors

Douglas Kepko examined promising treatment options that are currently under investigation in the United States.

The pandemic resulted in daily flurries of information and medical discoveries about the new and deadly disease. The work undertaken by the trio of LECOM medical scholars was most useful in culling key aspects of the virus and stating them in one source comprehensively, a skill made all the more effective as a result of their involvement in the LECOM Problem-Based Learning Pathway.

Speaking to the important impact that LECOM has had upon her education, Shahid noted, “I believe studying independently and working in small groups through the Problem-Based Learning Pathway at LECOM at Seton Hill helped me to develop important leadership, critical thinking, and organizational skills. Furthermore, the great mentors at my clinical core site taught me how to develop thoughtful clinical questions, conduct literature reviews, and prepare manuscripts.”

It is decidedly true that the most assiduous of souls find great purpose in their missions. For decades, LECOM progeny have proven this concept time and again; and the College extends a laudatory nod to these three dedicated scholars.