Research and Scholarship Activities

Research By the completion of training, our fellows are proficient in critically reviewing published research in PEM. During their training, fellows design, conduct, analyze and interpret data from their individual research or scholarly project. Through our research curriculum fellows learn basic biostatistics and epidemiology and are able apply basic biostatistics in their scholarly work. Unique to our program, each fellow will also choose a “PEM focus track” in an area of scholarship and be able to utilize available resources to achieve productive and meaningful scholarly work in their chosen area.

Research/Scholarly Project

Fellows identify an area of research during their first year of fellowship guided by their identified primary research mentor and our scholarly oversight committee (SOC), which meets with each fellow quarterly. Fellows have research time as part of their schedule throughout their training and have 12 months of focused research time in the third year of training. An annual didactic research curriculum is provided which incorporated hands-on basic statistical application sessions. In addition, fellows have the support of our institution’s clinical and translational science institute (CTSI) to assist in their project’s development and analysis. Fellows traditionally choose scholarly projects in either clinical or bench research, or medical education/curriculum development.

All fellows are supported to attend the national PEM fellow conference, typically during their first year of training. Fellows also present their work at local, regional and national meetings.

Our PEM division is a part of PECARN, the Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network, which conducts high-priority, multi-institutional research on the prevention and management of acute illnesses and injuries in children. Some of our PEM attending research interests include procedural sedation, headaches, concussion, emergency ultrasound, medical education, simulation medicine, quality improvement science, child abuse, cardiac arrest, anoxic brain injury, febrile infants, serious bacterial infections, urinary track infections, otitis media, lyme disease, ventriculoperitoneal shunt malfunction, pain management, alcohol and substance abuse screening and information technology.

PEM Focus Tracks

During fellowship training, we guide our fellows to find their compass by identifying an academic area of interest to them for which they will develop additional expertise, skills and scholarship. We mentor this process and encourage fellows to choose their track by the beginning of the second training year. Current PEM focus tracks include POCUS (Dr. Jennifer Marin, Director), research, medical education (Dr. Melissa Tavarez, Director), quality improvement (QI), pre-hospital medicine (Dr. Sylvia Owusu Ansah, Director) and information technology. Fellows can participate in courses through the Institute for Clinical Research Education (ICRE), the University of Pittsburgh's premier clinical and translational research training programs to take targeted classes or a certificate (e.g medical education, research). For QI, The Wolff Center at UPMC, offers classes and an educational series and certificate in quality improvement. For pre-hospital medicine, CHP PEM partners with the Center of Emergency Medicine, Department of Emergency Medicine Division of EMS  and local and regional EMS agencies for didactics, research, EMS QI, and EMS field experience, and there is also a disaster medicine component. For information technology, our hospital has been recognized by KLAS, an independent health care research organization, as the number one pediatric hospital in its use of health care information technology, and is led by one of our PEM faculty, Dr. Srinivasan Suresh, MD, MBA, FAAP, Chief Medical Information Officer, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.

Selection of Recent Fellow Publications

Identification of abusive head trauma in high-risk infants: A cost-effectiveness analysis. K. Noorbakhsh, R. Berger, K. Smith. Journal of Pediatrics. 2020. In press.

Outcomes of Young Infants With Hypothermia Evaluated in the Emergency Department. JPediatr 2020 Jun;221:132-137.e2. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.03.002. Sriram Ramgopal, Kathleen A Noorbakhsh, Christopher M Pruitt, Paul L Aronson, Elizabeth R Alpern, Robert W Hickey.

Isolated Increased Intracranial Pressure and Unilateral Papilledema in an Infant With Traumatic Brain Injury and Nondepressed Basilar Skull Fracture. Dunnick J, Gesteland P. Pediatric Emergency Care. 2019 Nov. 35(11):e-198-e200. PMID: 31688803.

Management and Outcomes of Spontaneous Pneumomediastinum in Children. Noorbakhsh KA, Williams AE, Langham JJ, Wu L, Krafty RT,  Furtado AD, Zuckerbraun NS, Manole MD. Pediatric emergency care. 2019 Aug. 23.doi: 10.1097/PEC.0000000000001895. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 31464878.

Brief Resolved Unexplained Events: Analysis of an Apparent Life Threatening Event Database. Ramgopal S, Soung J, Pitetti RD. AcadPediatr 2019 Nov -Dec;19(8):963-968 PMID: 31401230.

Risk factors and outcomes from all-terrain vehicle injuries compared to motor vehicle collisions in children. Ramgopal S, Cramer N, Gaines BA, Conti KA. ClinPediatr (Phila).2019 Sep;104(9):884-886 PMID: 31221623.

Serious bacterial infections in neonates presenting afebrile with history of fever. Ramgopal S, Walker L, Tavarez M, Nowalk AJ, Vitale MA. Pediatrics 2019 Aug;144(2).pii: e20183964 PMID: 31345996.

New Cluster for Acute Flaccid Myelitis in Western Pennsylvania. Cramer N, Munjal N, Ware D, Ramgopal S, Simon D, Freeman M, Michaels M, Stem C, Thakkar K, Williams J, Panigrahy A, Neville D, Owusu-Ansah S. Annals of Emergency Medicine. 2019. 2019 Oct;74(4):503-508 PMID: 30826069.

Risk of serious bacterial infection in infants ≤60 days of age presenting to emergency departments with history of fever only. Ramgopal S, Janofsky S, Zuckerbraun NS, Ramilo O, Mahajan P, Kuppermann N, Vitale MA. JPediatr. 2019 Jan;204:191-195 PMID: 30291019.

Adenosine Administration With a Stopcock Technique Delivers Lower-Than-Intended Drug Doses. Weberding NT, Saladino RA, Minnigh MB, Oberly PJ, Tudorascu DL, Poloyac SM, Manole MD. AnnEmerg Med. 2018 Feb;71(2):220-224. PMID: 29089171.