March 17, 2021—The seeds of future innovations in patient care, medical education and technology are being planted today by UF College of Medicine students, who are already entrenched in basic science and clinical research projects aimed at changing the way medicine is taught and administered forever.

The 2021 Medical Student Research Competition, which began virtually via Zoom on Feb. 16 and concluded March 9, featured 122 UF medical students presenting the research they conducted as part of the Discovery Pathways Program. The four-year program invites students to choose their own topic of research and offers faculty mentorship to the future clinician-scientists.

Second-year medical student Pranshu Bhardwaj received the Alpha Omega Alpha Award for his work titled “Exploring Script Concordance Testing as a Formative Assessment Tool in a Pediatric Clerkship.” His project explored administering an exam to third-year medical students during their pediatrics clerkships to evaluate their medical decision-making. Bhardwaj found script concordance tests can help predict students’ performances on end-of-clerkship exams and clinical grades.

“We hope that script concordance tests can be used in the future to give valuable feedback to students about their progress in clinical settings, identify students who are at risk of poor academic performance and utilize the tests to compare the quality of education at different rotation sites,” he says.

Bhardwaj says conducting this research, which was done under the mentorship of UF Health pediatricians Maria Kelly, M.D., and Erik Black, Ph.D., M.P.H., has sparked in him a new interest in medical education, cemented his resolve to pursue a career in pediatric academic medicine and shown him the deep pool of talent among his classmates.

“I am so honored that my project was recognized by the judges. It was a fantastic cherry on top of what was already an invaluable experience for me,” Bhardwaj says. “I believe what is more important is recognizing the amazing research the Class of 2023 produced across the board, especially in the middle of a global pandemic. I can’t wait to see how we all impact the field of medicine in the near future.”

Saleem Islam, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of surgery and pediatrics and division chief of pediatric surgery at the UF College of Medicine, serves as a mentor to students in the Discovery Pathways Program. He says Bhardwaj and his classmates demonstrated commendable work ethic and abilities in comprehension and efficiency.

“Pranshu displayed a deep level of understanding of his project, which was based in the education sciences,” Islam says. “He presented his project well, answered the questions deftly and clearly developed a passion as well as an understanding of the literature in educational research, which was very impressive.”

After Bhardwaj completes his medical training, he plans to deepen his research exploration of novel assessment techniques, with an ultimate goal of improving medical student education throughout the country.

“I believe everyone enters the field of medicine to make a positive impact on as many patients as possible,” he says. “My dream is to one day help train medical students who will go on to improve the health outcomes of patients who I would never have the opportunity to treat myself.”