Concluding, Refelcting On My Senior Project

Over the past several months, I have been investigating how provider-patient communication shapes perceived quality of care in the Emergency Department at Maimonides Medical Center. What started as an idea rooted in my volunteer experience at Maimonides grew into a full research project. Complete with a literature review, IRB navigation, a custom mixed-methods survey instrument, and in-person data collection on the ED floor. Now that data collection is complete and the final deliverables have been submitted, this post is my chance to look back on everything and share what I actually learned.

The research process was a lot harder to execute than I expected, especially on the fieldwork side. Weeks 8 and 9 made that clear pretty quickly. Identifying eligible patients, meaning those awaiting discharge and willing to participate, was slower and more unpredictable than the numbers on paper had suggested. Refusal rates, language barriers, and the general pace of an active emergency department all pushed back against the timeline I had imagined. At the same time, those challenges were the most educational part of the whole project. Every session left me with a better understanding of what clinical research actually looks like in practice, something no textbook had given me before.

The data itself piqued my interest. Across the 37 surveys collected, communication quality emerged as the strongest predictor of patient satisfaction, consistently outweighing wait time when patients reflected on their experience. Patients who felt emotionally acknowledged by staff were significantly more likely to rate their care as excellent. That finding aligns with the prior research I had reviewed, but seeing it reflected in responses from real patients in a real ED felt different from reading about it in a journal article. It made the project feel worthwhile.

Looking back at the full arc of this project, from when I submitted IRB documentation to standing in the ED hallway with a clipboard, I am glad I chose a topic that was grounded in something I had already experienced firsthand. Ms. Munroe, Antonios Likourezos, and Fiona Rivera were all essential to making this possible, and I am grateful for the access and support Maimonides extended throughout. I have attached by final presentation slides and deliverable for my project below. Thank you everyone for following me and my journey throughout this project. 

Final Presentation: Senior Project Final Presentation

Final Deliverable: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ijUHBP2ie_Y0v1i4wpRwowykkf-mg5Af/view