This is just a shout out to all the hard-working students who participated in SVU's first-ever 2011 SVU Student Case Study Competition.
The rules were that full-time students would need to submit a case by March 31st, 2011. They would need to have had an active role in the study, submitted a written and oral presentation (i.e. PowerPoint), and have their case reviewed by their ultrasound program's Program Director or faculty. The categories that each case would fall under included:
1. Peripheral Arterial
2. Peripheral Venous
3. Cerebrovascular
4. Abdominal
5. Special Circulation Studies
6. Other
Major props to all the students out there because putting together a well-written and well-researched case study is a lot of hard work. I know in my own case about bidirectional flow in the CCA, which didn't win :(, I was fortunate enough to follow my patient at her initial scan all the way to post-surgical treatment. It was a lot of research! Also, students don't really get to choose the kind of pathology they get. Sometimes you just need to be at the right place at the right time, get some crazy case, and hopefully learn from it.
So here were the winners from the first ever SVU Student Case Study Competition:
Alicia Formato
Rush University, Chicago, IL
“A Vascular Ultrasound Finding on a Pediatric Patient” in the Abdominal Category.
Elizabeth Tenny
Alvin Community College, Alvin, TX
“A Real Pain in the …Arm?” in the Peripheral Arterial Category.
Danielle Ofsowitz
Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
“Carotid Restenosis Post CEA” in the Cerebrovascular Category.
Keara Dwyer
Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
“Renal Transplant” in the Special Circulatory Category.
Hamzeh Darwiche
Nova Southeastern University, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
“Incidental Findings” in the Other Category.
What a really great competition! It's so awesome to see students take an active role in challenging themselves in competitions like these. Major props to these students and we can expect nothing but bright futures for them. Really awesome stuff. Hopefully these students get to go to the SVU Annual Conference this year, I would love to meet them.
To see the student's case presentations (PDF file), click on the link and look under "Competition Winners":
http://www.svunet.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3300
Major props to Elizabeth Tenny and Alicia Formato's presentation, they were pretty awesome. The other cases were awesome too..but ya know...bonus points for fancy colors. Hahaha.
****
I got to speak to fellow Rush University classmate Alicia Formato recently, and I was really fascinated by her case. What started out as a pediatric renal duplex exam became a full-fledged abdominal scan. Alicia noticed diminished waveforms throughout the abdomen which led her to suspect coarctation of the aorta. MR angiography later confirmed and diagnosed Alicia's suspicions of the coarctation.
Alicia Formato recently graduated magna cum laude last Saturday so major props to her and the rest of Rush University's students.
Cheers,
Manny :)