‘Really just get to do the work’: Spokane medical students conduct research at Providence Heart & Lung Institute

After his first year of medical school, Christian Held will be spending his time helping a Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center surgeon catch lung cancer quicker.

The University of Washington medical student is part of a new program that pairs students with doctors within the Providence Heart & Lung Institute to conduct medical research. It is an opportunity seldom afforded to students so early in their career.

“This is much more than a summer experience. These students are getting to be the lead person on their project with mentorship from the surgeon directly. None of us got that opportunity when we were coming up,” said Providence thoracic surgeon Alexi Matousek.

Medical students doing research at other institutions are often assistants to research fellows or hospital residents, Matousek said. Here the students will be conducting their own research with the aim of getting it published.

The Heart Institute Scholars Program will pair medical students to conduct heart and lung research over two years of their medical training. Over the four-term sequence, the students will shadow heart and lung surgeons within Sacred Heart while conducting data analysis.

The research conducted by the students will be used at the Heart & Lung Institute, Matousek said. Much of the research tracks how effective the medical technology is within the surgery center. For the past two years, surgeons have used a robot-assisted surgical tool to screen patients for lung cancer. Held’s research project investigates whether the machine has been effective.

The Ion Robotic Bronchoscopy System allows a surgeon to travel into the farthest reaches of the lung to biopsy the smallest of cancerous nodules. Previous technology could only reach into crevices of the lung three-quarters of an inch wide or larger. This new device can reach areas as small as 6 millimeters, or the width of the inside of a pen.

When a small lesion is discovered in a lung, doctors often waited to biopsy until the nodule was large enough. That often leaves patients waiting six months or more than a year to know if they had lung cancer.

“We would just wait and watch. Now we almost never need to do that,” said Matousek.

Data from the more than 300 biopsies in which the robot was used over the past two years will be analyzed in Held’s study. The medical student hopes the research will show the effectiveness and safety of the device.

“With these 300-plus patients in Spokane we can get this real-world picture of how this technology actually helps patients. And I really hope that the research will get published to show how effective this technology is and update guidelines of hospitals everywhere,” Held said.

Many medical guidelines still recommend biopsy when a potentially cancerous nodule is large enough. Research showing the effectiveness of the robot may led to guidelines changing and earlier detection of lung cancer at different hospitals.

This year the Heart Institute Scholars Program has 15 students, including two Gonzaga undergraduates. As part of the UW-GU Health Partnership, Gonzaga undergraduates planning to attend UW medical school in Spokane could get a jump start within the program. Undergraduates will assist medical students in their research projects.

“It’s so hard to be involved in a clinical setting, especially as a premed student,” said incoming Gonzaga senior Abdel Ibrahim. “This is a great opportunity for me to understand what goes in to optimizing patient care and making outcomes better.”

For Held the best part of the program is the direct mentorship by Matousek and experience of working within the Sacred Heart institute.

“We don’t have surgical residents in Spokane. The positive of that is I get to, as a rising second-year medical student, work with an attending surgeon. We get to work really closely with them and kind of formulate these projects and really just get to do the work,” Held said.