Former OrACORe/PIVOT and COMET T-32 fellow and current orthopaedic surgery resident Dr. Kiran Agarwal-Harding has been traveling to Malawi for over two years now, adding to his research portfolio on global orthopaedic trauma care. In early October, Dr. Agarwal-Harding traveled there again, this time to Lilongwe with a small team of Boston orthopaedic surgeons, including Dr. George Dyer from Brigham…

This is the third in a series of interviews we are conducting with each of our first-year research assistants about their OrACORe experience so far. Michael calls Connecticut his home but enjoys travelling abroad. He spent two trimesters at the University of Oxford during his undergraduate years (photo courtesy of Zarra). Michael Zarra joined OrACORe as a research assistant after…

This is the second in a series of interviews we are conducting with each of our first-year research assistants about their OrACORe experience so far. Kaetlyn Arant joined OrACORe as a research assistant after graduating from Amherst College in 2019 with Bachelor of Arts degrees in biochemistry and biophysics and French. Kaetlyn’s previous research experience was primarily in basic science.…

This is the first in a series of interviews we are conducting with each of our first-year research assistants about their OrACORe experience so far. Emma Williams joined the OrACORe team as a research assistant in the summer of 2019, after graduating from Cornell University with Bachelor of Arts degrees in biology and government. At Cornell, Emma worked in the…

  Bhushan is a former OrACORe research assistant and a current MD candidate at Harvard Medical School (HMS). He spoke with me about his plans and research experiences, before and after OrACORe.   ECL: What have you been doing since you left OrACORe? BD: I was a research assistant from January 2014 to July 2016 and then started medical school…

  Lindsey MacFarlane, MD, completed a postdoctoral fellowship through OrACORe's COMET T32 training program in 2018. She joins the faculty in Rheumatology at BWH and HMS this spring.   ECL: What has been the recent focus of your research, and have you seen it change in the past few years? LM: I’ve always had an interest in OA (osteoarthritis), a common…

ECL: First, can you give us an overview of the TeMPO trial in your own words? Why are we conducting this study? What do we want to know? JS: TeMPO is a randomized controlled trial of treatments for degenerative meniscal tear among adults who also have mild-to-moderate knee osteoarthritis. All the treatments are non-operative, including strengthening exercises and physical therapy…

ECL: What has been the biggest adjustment for you in coming to OrACORe? Surprises? Things you’ve had to learn on the fly? BLH: My work here is very different from what my PhD work involved. All my dissertation work was in a laboratory setting, with much more hands-on data collection involved. I took a comprehensive approach to studying underlying physiological…