Peyton Van Pevenage, MS3
How it came to be: “This publication was the result of my III project that I took on during the summer between MS1 and MS2. My faculty mentor’s lab focuses on studying cartilage and osteoarthritis, specifically through metabolomics, which is the study of metabolites in various body fluids.
“After talking through some ideas, we decided that I would perform a systematic review of the current literature surrounding the topic of mebatolomics in osteoarthritis to evaluate if there have been any consistently reported metabolites, or classes of metabolites. If there was consistent reporting of a metabolite, or panel of metabolites, future studies could potentially target the metabolites with the goal of identifying diagnostic biomarkers or metabolites that could be used to track progression of the disease/response to treatments.”
How I did it: “After searching databases, reading articles and synthesizing data, writing the paper, and submitting my assignment for III, my mentor and I moved towards working to submit the manuscript for publication. By the time we had the manuscript ready to submit to a journal, more articles had been published, so I had to complete my database search again and add in the findings of the new articles while I was out and about WWAMI-land on my 3rd year rotations.
“After a few rounds of editing the paper with my mentor, and making some minor revisions suggested by the reviewers for the journal, the manuscript was accepted for publication.”
Reflections: “Throughout this process, I learned that it takes a lot of time and dedication to bring a project from conception to publication. I was trying to adapt to a new environment of clinical rotations, while also trying to devote energy to my project; the balance was difficult to find at first, but I was thankful that I kept at it and saw the project through to the end.
“It was a relief to see the manuscript accepted, and I’m glad that I had this experience in order to better understand the process of publishing research. I’m thankful that I was provided this opportunity and the support to take on this project through the III course, and the support and guidance of my faculty mentor to push it through to publication.”
Thank yous: “I would like to thank my faculty mentor, Dr. Ron June, for helping me navigate through the publication process and taking so much time to go through rounds of editing and revising before final submission. A big thank you to Dr. Cynthia Sprenger for helping me, and other medical students, get their literature reviews off the ground and heading in the right direction year after year in the summer III experience, as well as checking in weekly to offer advice and guidance.
“Last but not least, thank you to the UW Health Sciences Library staff for helping me with the database search process and acquiring journal articles that weren’t available online.”