Duke Neurosurgery resident Theresa Williamson, MD, has been named one of two winners of a Duke REACH Equity Center Research Scholar Award for early-stage investigators interested in health disparities.
“We are very glad to have Dr. Williamson as a Scholar,” said REACH program director Cheryl Miller. “She is our first awardee from the Department of Neurosurgery.”
Williamson’s project is titled Communication Differences in Critical Decision-Making in Severe TBI. “Our goal in this study is to characterize racial differences in perception and communication styles in decision-making conversations in severe traumatic brain injury (TBI),” said Williamson. “Decision-making in severe TBI is extremely challenging, and because patients are often unable to speak for themselves, patient families become the decision-makers. What a provider says and what a surrogate decision-maker perceives leads to life or death decisions. Our work and the work of others suggests that preexisting socioeconomic factors, cultures, and knowledge, beliefs, and preferences play a key role in determining decision and outcome.”
Duke neurosurgeon Rory Goodwin, MD, PhD, is Williamson’s faculty mentor for the yearlong project. Peter Ubel, MD, Duke professor of business, public policy, and medicine, is co-mentor.