C. Meghan McMurtry - Edit 1
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- I'm really interested in
the intersection of what people
typically think of as physical
and mental health
or the mind-body connection.
And pain, I think, is the epitome
that really lies at the intersection
in understanding psychology
and medicine together.
So the research that we conduct
in the Pediatric Pain, Health
and Communication Lab
focuses on both acute pain
and chronic pain.
Acute pain is pain from things like
needle procedures,
such as immunizations
and venipunctures for blood draws.
And children undergo a lot of
those procedures
throughout the course
of their childhood.
In the needle contacts,
one of the things that's really
important to understand
is the contribution of fear.
And so people really kind of ignore
the fact that
when people are afraid of needles
it actually makes it more painful
less likely they're gonna show up
and it creates all sorts of problems.
And so one of the unique parts
about our research lab
and the research I conduct is that
we study both pain and fear
in the context of needle procedures
to make them more comfortable
for everybody.
Getting this award means
a recognition from the university
that the research that we do
is important,
I'm the only one who sort of does
this kind of research here
and so it's really nice recognition.
It also means that there's a value
to our research
from the university perspective and
it allows us to conduct pilot studies
and doing more innovative work
that we can't necessarily get with
great big grant funding app,
but it allows us to sow the seeds
and plant the foundation
so that then we can get bigger grants
down the road.
It also allows me to support
my graduate students,
we have a very busy lab
and it allows them to pursue
the kinds of research that
they wanna do as well.