Student Profile: Nicole Christian ‘07
There it was, a humble poster entitled “ADHD in a Detention
Center Population,” sitting on an easel in the Biomedical Science
Tower lobby. Just another poster presentation among dozens at
the WPIC Research Day. But to Nicole Christian ’08, it
summarized scholarly work she’d been doing for over a year as
part of the Area of Concentration in Neuroscience (AOC-N).
And despite her own modesty about what she’d accomplished,
the panel of faculty judges decided that her work merited that
day’s award for most outstanding presentation, surpassing high
quality grant-funded projects submitted by residents and junior
faculty.
How did this medical student wind up garnering such a major honor? Nicole’s road
began well before coming to the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 2004.
She did her undergraduate work at Villanova University, receiving a BA in Psychology
and graduating cum laude. Nicole wanted to explore what she describes as “my passion
for children and adolescents in underserved populations,” and before medical school she
worked as a nutrition and health teacher in a low-income elementary school. Even at that
point she was thinking about child and adolescent psychiatry as a possible career path,
and when she came to Pitt she pursued these interests.
Early on, she met Dr. Jess Shatkin, a child psychiatrist and AOC-N steering committee
member, who advised her and helped her get exposed to clinical child psychiatry settings.
She also started planning for summer after first year, and secured a summer research
fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry, working under her faculty mentor Dr.
Oscar Bukstein. This summer research became the ADHD project: Nicole conducted
interviews with over 100 adolescents at Shuman Center, scanned medical records,
analyzed data on prevalence and comorbidity, and reviewed the literature on the topic.
Her key findings included a very high prevalence of disruptive behavior disorders—50%
meeting criteria for ADHD, two-thirds with conduct disorder or oppositional defiant
disorder—and yet very limited treatment—just 15% on medication. Nicole’s work shows
how important it is to better screen and treat juvenile detainees and raises the hope that
such treatment may “lessen the burden of delinquent behavior.”
Nicole benefited from the steady mentoring approach of Dr. Bukstein, who is a national
expert on ADHD and related disorders. Although quite busy, Dr. Bukstein highly values
student mentoring, and his experience and knowledge helped her develop and carry out
this project. Going for IRB approval, generating paper ideas, or recruiting new
subjects—Dr. Bukstein was able to help Nicole be successful in her endeavors.
Where does the AOC-N come in? As Nicole thought more about her interests in
adolescent mental health, she thought about how a program like the AOC might help her
develop and expand further. She’d done some clinical work but wanted to do more, as
well as gaining a greater knowledge base of neuroscience overall. Nicole hoped that the
AOC would allow her to meet up with other residents or psychiatrists, see communitybased programs, and help her achieve her goal of securing residency in child and
adolescent psychiatry.
After meeting with the AOC Director to plan out her experience, Nicole pursued a series
of activities as part of the program:
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Attending educational workshops and events within and outside of the AOC-N
Applying for a service grant from the American Psychiatric Foundation
Contacting local resident mentors for advice and direction
Connecting with Dr. Cheryl Salary for a longitudinal clinical experience working
with Homewood teenagers who have psychiatric illness and pregnancy
Getting involved with organized psychiatry, joining AACAP and attending the
national APA convention, ultimately getting a leadership position in the national
PsycSIGN (student interest group) organization
Pursuing a humanistic experience with Drs. Michelle Barwell and Mario Cruz as
part of a domestic violence group
Thoughout her time in the program, Nicole has been an active participant, suggesting
topics for workshops, attending recruitment events, and meeting regularly with the AOC
Director. But all this time hasn’t taken away from either her curricular work (she
continues to excel in classes) or her other extracurricular activity (an officer in the local
SNMA, a student volunteer at a local homeless shelter, and a medical missionary to
Ghana).
Her success in the AOC-N can be traced in part to her own initiative and dedication. But
she also sought out and utilized good mentoring and other resources, developed a strong
relationship with a primary scholarly mentor, built bridges with clinical practitioners to
forge clinical and humanistic experiences, and balanced her focus on underserved
mentally ill kids with openness to the breadth of neuroscience as a whole.
“The best part of the AOC for me,” she says, “has the been the networking opportunities
with residents and physicians and also the knowledge that we gain that may not otherwise
be taught in the medical school curriculum. Learning about current research being
conducted at WPIC or even basic things like the truth about anti-depressants and
adolescents [has] really helped to broaden my understanding of psychiatry.”
Down the road, Nicole hopes to pursue residency in child and adolescent psychiatry, and
possibly a forensic psychiatry fellowship later. This training will allow her to achieve her
goals of working with underserved diverse youth populations, using her neuroscience
background to give her the broadest and most effective biopsychosocial approach to
patient care and community work.
“I think this experience will certainly help me in residency,” Nicole notes, “because I had
the opportunity to gain additional exposure to clinical psychiatry. Most medical students
are only exposed to what they learn in the classroom and during their rotations. However,
the AOC challenges us to go beyond lecture and classroom instruction and, through
dynamic research and clinical experiences, begin to tackle more challenging topics in
psychiatry.”
We in the AOC-N are extremely fortunate to count Nicole as one of our neuroscience
scholars.