Naval Medical Center Portsmouth (NMCP) hosted a Research Fair Sept. 10 to connect residents and faculty with command resources and to inspire collaborations among staff.

The fair offered 16 stations staffed by representatives who spoke about research projects in their departments. These included Clinical Investigations, Visual Information, Library Services, Nursing Research, Women’s Health, Pediatrics, Otolaryngology and multiple graduate medical education programs.

“The Research Fair is a show-and-tell of what the medical center staff is doing by way of research and advancing Navy Medicine and improving patient care,” said Marie Dillard, research resources team leader for the Clinical Investigation Department. “The importance of the Research Fair is to get the word out about the resources we have available to potential new and seasoned researchers.”

In addition, the fair helped staff members network and connect to mentors, said Thomas Rieg, NMCP research director and head of the Clinical Investigation Department. “One purpose is to introduce new investigators and new interns to all the resources that are available here at the medical center. The second purpose is to have all the investigators collaborate with their resources.”

Kersten Wheeler, Research Subjects Protection division head, explained that connecting and networking with other research staff members helps ensure that command subjects are protected in every way possible.

“What is important about research here at NMCP is that we do a lot of translational studying,” Wheeler said. “This means that the inquiry we do impacts patient care and patient safety and also makes improvements on the battlefield; it really has a wide-ranging impact.”

The fair isn’t just for medical center staff members but also dedicated to educating patients and active duty dependents as well.

“We like for patients and dependents to stop through the Research Fair,” Rieg said. “We want them to see what the fair is all about in terms of education and research at NMCP and to learn from researchers about what it is that we do to improve quality patient care.”

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