Med Student Receives Boring Trust Award Under Guidance of Surgery Faculty

Suleman Khan, a third-year Stanford medical student, has been awarded the 2020 Dorothy Dee and Marjorie Helene Boring Trust Award under the guidance of Surgery faculty: Drs. Oliver Aalami, Carla Pugh, and Ronald Dalman. The Boring Trust Research Award supports Stanford Medical Students to spearhead independent research projects aiming to transform cardiovascular care. It provides students with $15,000 over the course of a year to be applied towards research and educational expenses.

Suleman's project, entitled Vascular1, aims to combine artificial intelligence and virtual reality to teach medical students and surgical residents ultrasound-guided vascular access (USGVA) strategies. USGVA is often learned on patients who suffer unnecessary complications or through expensive mannequins. Through Vascular1 and affordable Oculus Quest VR headsets, medical trainees will dynamically learn the hand-eye coordination skills required for safe USGVA. Suleman's project will also include an educational study of trainees to compare pre- and post-training performance with Vascular1 with the hope of distributing the platform to other institutions.