Office of Research and Innovation
Message from Dr. Steve Mifflin, Associate Dean of Research and Innovation
The Office of Research and Innovation's mission is to work with our outstanding faculty to train professional osteopathic physicians and scholars with a focus on patient and justice-based research and scholarly activity. Through clinical and laboratory opportunities, our students obtain the professional skills and experiences that will prepare them for intra- and inter-disciplinary research and scholarly activity and careers as lifelong learners.
Please browse our site to learn more about the exciting research being pursued by faculty, staff and students. You may be surprised by the breadth and depth of research activities at UIWSOM as a young medical school. The UIWSOM’s strategic plan for research and scholarly activity aligns closely with the University of the Incarnate Word’s social justice and community service mission while remaining committed to expanding knowledge that is grounded in the unique elements and applications of the principles and practices of osteopathic medicine.
Our efforts are centered on three themes:
- Community Engagement: Develop translational research that directly benefits local communities.
- Education: Develop, initiate and assess novel models of education and training for students with a focus on social.
- Partnerships: Establish interdisciplinary educational and research partnerships regionally, nationally.
Our location within the thriving biomedical research community of San Antonio and the historically rich Brooks City Base is the site of the former U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine. In addition to working with UIWSOM faculty, our students are working at research facilities throughout the city (e.g., UT Health, Texas Biomedical Foundation, Children’s Hospital of San Antonio). Our goal is to provide our faculty, staff and students with a wide variety of opportunities to develop and pursue research and scholarly activity. We are adding to our existing core laboratory facilities and developing new facilities so that investigators are not burdened with having to obtain funding before they can even begin a research project. We have instituted internal funding mechanisms to support the research efforts of faculty, staff and students as well as programs to support student travel so that our learners can present the results of their research efforts to colleagues at conferences and meetings within Texas and across the USA.
If you have any questions about research and scholarly activity at the UIWSOM please do not hesitate to contact me at mifflin@uiwtx.edu.
Research Areas of Interest
The University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine is committed to providing learners and faculty with research opportunities in the Anatomical Sciences. Our state-of-the-art anatomy facilities currently support projects in the following areas:
- 3D model printing
- Anatomical variations
- Online course design
- Ultrasound technology
- Osteopathic integration
- Innovative teaching modalities
Our anatomy faculty are involved in several multi-institutional collaborations related to the anatomical sciences and are excited to engage all UIWSOM faculty and students interested in anatomy education research.
The University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine is committed to supporting research in community health assessment and improvement, clinical quality improvement, medical informatics, health services research, worksite wellness, preventive medicine and public health.
UIWSOM will utilize multidisciplinary and community-engaged approaches to scholarship with the goal of jointly developing (with civil society organizations, practitioners, administrators and policymakers), implementing and assessing interventions aimed at evidence-based solutions to health differences that are driven largely by social, economic and environmental factors. Research efforts are aimed at improving equity of access to appropriate primary healthcare and address individual, social and structural determinants of health that lead to or reinforce conditions of vulnerability and a greater risk of poorer health outcomes.
The University of the Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine supports scholarly activity in the design, development, implementation and evaluation of osteopathic medical education. Areas of current faculty interest and investigation include:
- Curriculum design and instructional strategies innovations
- Evaluating integration of osteopathic principles with biomedical science education
- Learning through assessment and evaluation
- Faculty development program initiatives
- Academic leadership training
- Mentorship training
- Integrating facilitation of physician personhood/professional identity formation into a student-centered curriculum
- Interprofessional education
The Department of Translation Medicine within the University of Incarnate Word School of Osteopathic Medicine has a unique capability for conducting benchtop-to-bedside and bedside-to-benchtop, pre-clinical research, connecting military and civilian applications.
Our department’s scientists seek to understand and develop fundamental critical care technology of injury and illness that impact our community and military personnel across the U.S., and to translate the most cutting-edge medicine findings to bring novel lifesaving interventions to the patients that need them the most.
Our scientific programs are complemented by substantial core facilities and by an extensive pre-clinical, clinical and applied translational relationships, providing additional expertise and collaboration. Our faculty is dedicated to training the next generation of physician- and basic-scientists through the Department of Translational Medicine, UIWSOM.