Congratulations to Dr. Melissa Joseph on receiving not one but TWO grants from the SAEMF: the 2019 Simulation Academy Novice Research Grant AND the Education Project Grant!

Dr. Joseph received her MD from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and did her Emergency Medicine residency at Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center, where she served as chief resident of education. After working for a wonderful community group in Aurora, CO, she completed a fellowship in medical simulation at Yale University, where she is now the Director of Resident Simulation. Supported by strong mentorship at the Yale Center for Medical Simulation, her area of interest is looking at heart rate variability (HRV) as a marker of sympathetic tone and how this relates to stress and burnout in the education of EM residents.

For the Simulation Academy Novice Research Grant, her study aims to further delineate stress states and physiologic response in EM residents to various stressors during medical simulation cases. Her Education Project study aims to determine if a simulation-based stress inoculation training protocol could be used during resident education to modulate the acute stress response, as measured by HRV, in order to help decrease the incidence of developing the clinical syndrome of burnout as well as PTSD in physician trainees.

We are excited to see the outcomes of Dr. Joseph’s important work, and wish her all the best in her investigations; congratulations, Dr. Joseph!