Health Scholars at the Mayo Clinic

One student will be involved with a review of Immunotherapy in patients with chordoma treated with immunotherapy. The time of day to work on this project is flexible.

One student will participate in a study to evaluate new patient services and patient care team services being delivered through the Mayo Clinic TV platform in the hospital setting. Measures will include impact on patient satisfaction and patient outcomes, as well as the impact on nursing efficiency and satisfaction. The student will help develop survey instruments, interview patients and staff, analyze results, and participate in planning improvements to the user interface. The student will also interact with the Usability team, Nursing Administration and Video Engineering.

The Lutgens and Leiner laboratories investigate the role of the immune system in cardiovascular disease. In this summer-student project, the Lutgens lab will team up with the Leiner lab to detail imaging characteristics of coronary atherosclerotic plaques of patients using AI-based algorithms and correlate these findings with an array of co-stimulatory immune checkpoint-based biomarker profiles in blood leukocytes of the same patients. The role of key co-stimulatory immune checkpoints found to correlate with coronary artery disease will subsequently be investigated in our basic science models. This summer internship will be a combination of basic science, computer science and imaging.

Shadow in clinic and in the Operating Room as student interest dictates, and work on a clinical research project on a topic in thoracic surgery.  Thoracic Surgery deals with both malignant and benign diseases of the chest.  We primarily deal with issues related to the lungs, esophagus, mediastinum, and pleural diseases.  We also are involved in lung transplantation.  In the past, St Olaf Scholars have presented their research projects at national/international thoracic surgery meetings.

The project will be focused on statistical analyses of genomic data in breast and ovarian cancer.

The scholar will join the Anesthesia and Critical Care Biostatistics team with the opportunity to work on collaborative research applying data science and statistical methods to clinical research studies.  Examples of recent summer projects include: (i) analyzing outcomes of a randomized clinical trial comparing interventions for post-surgical anemia, (ii) a cohort study evaluating variation in blood pressure measured often during surgery and how that variation relates to post-surgical outcomes, and (iii) a cohort study quantifying bleeding risk in critically ill patients who get aspirin and anticoagulant medications. The scholar should be aware that there will be a few in-person team meetings during the summer, but most team and project meetings are conducted virtually. Additional coursework including SDS 264 or SDS 284 are favorable but not required.  Students completing their junior year highly preferred.

The Intern will be assigned to support the buildout of a quality, regulatory, and compliance office organization, tools, policies, and procedures for Mayo Collaborative Services (MCS) under the direction of an Operations Director and a Senior Manager. Tasks will include review and organization of documentation, organizational recommendations, cross-functional work with other MCS and Mayo Clinic teams.  The intern will be given full responsibility for an independent assignment relating to one of the quality, regulatory, or compliance functions

I had the opportunity to conduct clinical research in the field of oncology at Mayo Clinic. I carried out a retrospective chart review of the effectiveness of immunotherapy in treating chordoma, a rare and highly malignant type of bone cancer. This project involved learning to design a data collection platform in REDCap, finding and measuring tumors on CT scans, and creating charts that demonstrate clinical outcomes. I was mentored by a team of sarcoma oncologists on this project, working in the midst of Mayo’s oncology floor. Throughout the summer I also had the opportunity to shadow 14 providers throughout the Mayo Clinic, from cardiology to general surgery to endocrinology. These experiences were instrumental in showing me the rewards and challenges of working in many areas of medicine, and were great opportunities to ask questions and learn from physicians. I also frequently attended guest speaker events and grand rounds, learning about a variety of cutting-edge developments in the medicine. Written by Anna Schmidt

I worked in the Sleep Neurology Lab. My main goal was to learn how to analyze polysomnography (sleep study) and learn more about the neurology of sleep. I spent most of my time practicing sleep scorings and passed a gold standard test to be able to analyze sleep studies for our main research project. I also read articles for our weekly Journal Club meetings that we had with Dr. St. Louis, where we discussed articles in the field and draw connections to our summer research project. In addition to the tasks, I also to shadowed other doctors and conducted informational interviews to learn more about clinical practice and research. At the end of my internship, I created a research poster with the data I analyzed over the summer and presented it during a poster symposium at the Mayo Clinic. Written by Besna Erol

For summer 2025, one student will participate in a study to evaluate new patient services and patient care team services being delivered through the Mayo Clinic TV platform in the hospital setting. Measures will include impact on patient satisfaction and patient outcomes, as well as the impact on nursing efficiency and satisfaction. The student will help develop survey instruments, interview patients and staff, analyze results, and participate in planning improvements to the user interface. The student will also interact with the Usability team, Nursing Administration and Video Engineering.

This past summer I had a great research and learning experience at Mayo Clinic with Dr. Stacey Winham in the Quantitative Health Sciences Department. It helped me gain invaluable insights about how collaborative interdisciplinary research works. I also learned about the lives of Biostatistics/Bioinformatics professionals at Mayo Clinic and their educational journeys. Besides exploring and learning about postgraduate educational and career opportunities, I also got to work with a large scale genomic dataset and genomic data analysis and visualization. Overall it was a great learning opportunity that helped me narrow in on my future educational and career interests after graduation. Written by Inti Intisar.  Students must have completed the prerequisite STAT 272 Statistical Modeling.