Teaching and Presentations
Due to our proximity to the Medical and Graduate Colleges, the program consistently has learners from the Medical Schools, Physician Assistant, Nursing School (APRN program), and Residency & Fellowship Programs. This allows our residents to have opportunities to be clinical teachers. Our residents have always taken a proactive approach to being teachers often providing 'lunch and learn' lectures on core PM&R topics they feel their future colleagues in the hospital would benefit from learning about.
Residents are also invited to give lectures or participate in workshops to Medical and PA students:
- Fall Risk / Geriatric Lecture Series
- MSK Physical Exam
- Ultrasound and Injection Workshops
Quality Improvement Projects
Quality Improvement Projects are completed during PGY-3 year. The department has encouraged residents to pursue a QI project within a field of interest (e.g. pain medicine). Most residents partner with other residents with similar clinical residents to complete a project.
Current QI Research Projects for 2025-2026:
- Optimization of Acute Inpatient Rehabilitation Admissions following Organ Transplantation
- Compliance and Efficiency with Urine Drug Screening in Outpatient Opioid Management
- Reducing Cardiac Adverse Events in Heart Failure patients in Acute Inpatient Rehabilitation
- Improving Accuracy of diet orders in Acute Inpatient Rehabilitation
Research
As part of their training, residents are educated on the basics of research principals. Two members of the departments research team (Philip Malloy, P.T., Ph.D. and Karla Wente, P.T., D.P.T., W.C.S., C.L.T.) are spearheading the program as follows:
| PGY1-2 | Research Education Track: Quarterly Educational Sessions on how to create a research project (i.e. how do design a study, what is inclusion/exclusion criteria) using sample case scenarios. The concept of the program is to have the residents understand all aspects of a research from start to finish to set them up for their future projects. |
|---|---|
| PGY-3 | Quality Improvement Projects (see above) |
| PGY-4 | Residents are encouraged to participate in a research projects |
Since many of our residents are interested in pursuing a fellowship, they partner with faculty within the Department and/or Medical Center to complete research projects during their training. Being intimately connected with a large Medical Center, the residents have access to innumerable opportunities to do research with other departments (e.g. neurosurgery, neurology)
Our faculty and residents have been involved with multiple projects:
- "Neuro-Pong": evaluating the efficacy of ping-pong for functional symptoms and management in patient's with Multiple Sclerosis (Research Study with Grant)
- Evaluating factors that contribute to patients being discharged to SNF from AIR at RUSH (Research Study with Grant)
- Psychogenic Movement Disorders: Outcomes with Early Intervention with Inpatient Rehabilitation
- Functional Outcomes following Stem Cell Implantation in Complete Traumatic Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
- NIH supported Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN Study) a longitudinal epidemiological study of midlife women
- WISHFIT study, a behavioral intervention for Black and White midlife women on Chicago’s Southside to reduce the menopause related increase in visceral fat and its negative metabolic consequences
- NIH sponsored Abundant Living in Vibrant Energy (ALIVE) pilot project using a bible study to improve diet
The MARS lab is dedicated to promoting function and quality of life of the individuals and diverse communities we serve through advancements in movement and rehabilitation science research that are focused on conditions that affect movement and function.
The current research lines investigate movement and function for people with the following conditions:
- Hip Pain and Post-Surgical Hip Conditions
- Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
- Multiple Sclerosis