Research Directors and Faculty

Research Curriculum, Required Elements

Research Curriculum, Non-required Elements

Carolinas Rehabilitation Research Excellence Award

The primary objectives of any resident research project are to ensure that the experience is educational, ethical, productive and an overall positive experience. Our research staff and faculty work with our residents to meet the needs of their project and research education. This includes:

• Consultation
• Guidance
• Direction to needed resources
• Information on applying for Carolinas HealthCare Foundation funds
• Explanation of IRB procedures
• Training in regulatory oversight and Good Clinical Practices
• Financial administration and project management

Flora Hammond, MD, Mark Hirsch, PhD and Rashmi Pershad are here to help guide you through a successful research experience.

Research Directors and Faculty

Flora Hammond, MD
Research Director
In addition to serving as Research Director, Dr. Hammond is the Principal Investigator and Project Director for our Traumatic Brain Injury Model System project at Carolinas Rehabilitation. She has actively participated in research throughout her education, beginning with basic science research during undergraduate and medical school training. During residency, Dr. Hammond conducted a randomized, controlled trial comparing general and spinal anesthesia for surgeries on individuals with spinal cord injury. Since graduating from residency, she has actively conducted research in the area of TBI, focusing particularly on treatment intervention efficacy, outcome measurement tools, prognostication, changes over time, irritability, depression, and family needs. After completing her PM&R residency at Baylor College of Medicine, she completed a brain injury fellowship at Wayne State University/Detroit Medical Center. Dr. Hammond has lead a number of original randomized, controlled clinical trials and prospective multi-centered studies, as well as a number of industry-sponsored clinical trials. She offers our residents her extensive experience in searching the literature, protocol development, monitoring data quality, sharing data, performing and interpreting analyses, presenting findings, and manuscript preparation. She has served as an invited participant to both the Aspen Conference and the Galveston Brain Injury Conference (brain injury think tanks). Her excellence in research, teaching and administration were acknowledged by her receipt of the 2001 Young Academician Award from the Association of Academic Physiatrists (AAP) and the 2001 AAP Best Faculty Paper Presentation Award.

Mark Alexander Hirsch, PhD
Research Faculty
Dr. Hirsch's background is in teaching and PM&R, with both clinical and academic expertise in motor therapy, neuroscience, aging and physical therapy education. Dr. Hirsch holds a Bachelor of Science in Education from the State University of New York, College at Cortland, a Master of Arts in Education from the University of South Florida and a PhD from Florida State University, where his training was with Drs. Robert A. Rider and Tonya Toole and focused on Motor Control and Gerontology. His PhD was awarded for showing that people living with Parkinson's disease could benefit from a high-intensity balance and resistance training program which improved postural control and muscle strength. He served as an NIH funded post-doctoral research fellow with Barbara J. de Lateur, MD in the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Johns Hopkins University with a major emphasis in Biomedical engineering, Neuroscience, Aging, and Neurological Rehabilitation and served as an Assistant Professor, part time, on the faculty of the Department of PM&R. Mark has taught and worked internationally in Motor Therapy, Neurology, Sport Rehabilitation and Orthopedic settings. Mark's current research interests are:

• motor learning and motor recovery
• plasticity in the nervous system
• developmental neuroscience
• biomechanics of posture, gait and upper limb movements, and
• spasticity measurement.

Rashmi Pershad
Assistant Research Director
Rashmi Pershad holds a Bachelor of Science degree from University College London and a Masters degree from the University of Lancashire, England. She has more than 10 years of experience working in basic research and research administration. Ms. Pershad has worked at many prestigious facilities including Baylor College of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center and M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. At M.D. Anderson Rashmi was co-director of an NIH funded grant where she led and directed the development of a core facility. She is a published researcher, author and international presenter, with excellent management and administrative skills. In her present role as Assistant Director of Research for Carolinas Rehabilitation, Rashmi will work with Dr. Hammond and Dr. Hirsch in managing a strong nationally recognized research program.

Research Curriculum
Required Elements:

Research Director Meetings: During each year of residency, the residents complete a research and career interest survey and meet with the research director. This meeting is designed to allow the research director to understand the resident's individual career interests and goals, in order to help the residents develop an individualized research plan for there residency.

PGY-4 Resident Presentations: At the end of the PGY-4 year, each resident leads a 15-20 minute presentation at the Medical Education Conference. In this forum, the resident has the opportunity to present their research findings or present on a relevant research topic. A mock presentation to selected attending physicians can be done prior to this formal presentation to allow mentoring on presentation skills.

Human Subjects Protection Education Web Course: This simple, self-paced course offers an excellent overview of human subjects' protection.

Annual Biostatistics Course: A six (6) session Biostatistics Course is offered each September through October by our Biostatistics department. This entertaining course (yes, entertaining!) is also available to residents during other residency years. Our beloved statistician, Jim Norton, PhD is energetic, an excellent teacher and turns basic research language into something everyone can understand and enjoy.

Quarterly Research Conference: Research Conferences are held four (4) times yearly, scheduled during Thursday noon lectures. The topic of these conferences varies to try to meet the education needs of the residents and faculty. Topics cover four broad categories:

• Regulations, ethics and good clinical practices
• Literatures searches, electronic resources, research funding, statistics and project management
• Dissemination of research findings
• Critical review of the literature

These conferences are designed to complement the activities of the residents as they move from the initiation of their research project to its completion through an interactive forum.

Monthly Journal Club: Each month, two articles are reviewed and discussed. The established purposes for journal club are to:

• Teach critical review of the literature
• Contribute to the basis upon which the individual may be prepared to pursue their academic and research vision
• Provide exposure to the basics of research design and statistics, and
• Allow discussion of articles that describe changes in practice or current thinking.

Research Curriculum
Non-required Elements:

Resident Research Project: There are many reasons a resident may elect to participate in research. Through research one gains experience in critical thinking and interpretation of the literature. In this era of evidence-based medicine, it is necessary for each specialty to create a rigorous scientific basis for practice guidelines. We intend to provide the basic skills needed to:

• Search and review the literature with a critical approach
• Pursue your career/academic vision, and
• Convey clinical and research findings effectively

The experience and curriculum is individualized to meet the needs of each resident and designed to be practical, interactive and inspiring. Depending on your interest, a variety of levels of research endeavors are available: case study, case-series, review article or chapter, database research, and prospective and retrospective original studies. The Research Director and other faculty members work with each resident to help guide you towards selecting such opportunities. Through this clinical research training, it is hoped that each resident will leave residency prepared to meet the academic challenges ahead and that some will find their experience in research sufficiently inspiring to continue with much needed research in our field.

Industry-Sponsored Research: Residents may be offered the opportunity to participate in industry-sponsored clinical trials.

Research Elective: Residents may elect to spend up to one month on research. This experience involves the resident's own project, as well as other activities of the research department to provide a wide range of experiences. Prior to the elective, the resident and Research Director develop individualized objectives specific to the upcoming rotation. In order to get resident research projects completed before the end of residency, it is encouraged that this month takes place during the PGY-3 or early PGY-4 year.

Co-Investigator Meetings: For those participating in a research project, regular meetings will be held with the co-investigators to guide the project from inception to completion. This forum provides a highly educational and collaborative process catered to meet the needs of the project and the educational needs of the resident.

Good Clinical Practices (GCP) Training: GCP training is provided to clinical investigators by the Carolinas HealthCare System Grants & Contracts office. This is required in order to participate in research within CHS.

Carolinas Rehabilitation Research Excellence Award

Upon completion of the residency, the class of PGY-4 residents will be considered for the Clinical Research Award. In order to be eligible the resident must have:

• completed their research project
• submitted the manuscript for publication
• demonstrated excellence in research

This award acknowledges the highest conduct of research and thus is not expected to be granted every year, although eligibility for this award will be reviewed annually. The award consists of an elegant commemorative inscription and $500 cash.