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THE GRADUATE SCHOOL

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International Travel

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Northwestern University cares about its students, particularly when traveling internationally for university-sponsored activities. In order to provide the best service, all graduate and professional students are required to register their travel with the Office of Global Safety and Security (OGSS).

OGSS provides comprehensive guidance and resources for all kinds of emergencies abroad  and travel requirements  for   graduate students  – including the International Travel Registry .

International Travel Registry

Students planning international university-affiliated travel (e.g., conference attendance, research, field studies, performance, competition) are required to register their international travel in Northwestern’s International Travel Registry . The travel registry provides travelers with important health and safety resources prior to departure and allows Northwestern to communicate with travelers while abroad.

Register Your INTERNATIONAL Travel  

**Domestic and personal travel does not need to be registered with OGSS. Students who are fully funded by external scholarships and who will not receive any Northwestern financial support (such as a fellowship or grant, stipend top-off, or supplement) during their time abroad are not required but are encouraged  to register their travel. Learn more  here .

Additional Resources

Students traveling internationally should review the information posted on the   Office of Global Safety and Security’s website , including:

• Advice for travelers with  pre-existing health conditions
• Enrollment link for  GeoBlue health insurance coverage  [required] during travel 
• Information related to   sexual misconduct abroad
• Specific resources for optimal travel   health, safety, and security
• Emergency messages and alerts   for travelers
• Security information resources   to register for travel security alerts 

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STUDENT HEALTH INSURANCE

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Travel Immunization Info

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• Gained/Lost Coverage? (QLEs)

The NU-SHIP covers all  CDC recommended travel immunizations  at 100%*. Additionally, NU-SHIP covers the consultation and immunization administration at zero cost to students. We have worked with Aetna to make this extremely clear to providers by adding information to your insurance ID card.

We recommend printing or downloading a copy from  Aetna’s website  if you have not yet for the current academic year.

*To ensure students receive this benefit they must use an in-network provider. For students on either the Chicago or Evanston campus we recommend the following clinics:

• Northwestern Medicine: Travel Medicine
• Address: 676 N. Saint Clair St. Ninth Floor, Suite 900 Chicago, IL 60611
• Phone: 312-926-3155
• NorthShore University Health System: Travel Center
• Address: 2150 Pfingsten Road Suite 3000 Glenview, IL 60026
• Phone: 847-657-5670

CVS Minute Clinics

• Find a Clinic
• Phone: 1-866-389-ASAP (2727)

Health & Wellness

Traveling abroad health experts share the shots to get and meds to take to stay healthy, after being cooped up during the pandemic, a lot of americans plan to travel abroad for the first time in years, by lauren petty • published june 13, 2023 • updated on june 13, 2023 at 5:55 pm.

Now that post-pandemic travel is booming, the Northwestern Medicine Travel Clinic is busy too.

“This week has been honeymoon week already and it's only Tuesday,” said Helen Bedross, a registered nurse in the clinic. “A lot of honeymooners going to South Africa and some of the surrounding countries, Asia as well. When it when it opened up, my gosh, the floodgates opened.”

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With honeymooners, business travelers and families taking international vacations, the staff at the clinic is working to get travelers prepared. They treat families with children age 6 and up.

“I just think it's really important to think ahead about your travel and what you can do to prevent illness like that's the main thing we want to do here,” said Moira Nguyen, a nurse practitioner in the clinic.

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“Two people going to Peru can need totally different things. So it's your activities that you're doing, where you're going, your medical history, any medications that you're on -- all those things will let us know what is safe to give you,” Bedross said.

Some locations won’t require a visit.

“Generally Europe is a pretty, you know, ‘go ahead and enjoy your trip’ without visiting us,” Nguyen said.

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But what you need in Asia, may be different than what you need in Africa.

“We offer meningitis, yellow fever, pre and post exposure rabies, Japanese encephalitis, the whole gamut of vaccines,” Bedross said.

It’s not just about immunizations. There are also several prescribed medications you could need, depending on where you’re going and what activities you will be doing.

“We usually give an antibiotic for traveler's diarrhea, but that's just in case. We hope people never have to use it. We also talk about altitude sickness medications, motion sickness, there's some things with freshwater exposure,” Bedross said.

Anti-malaria pills are common too.

When it comes to vaccines, timing is key. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends getting vaccinations four to six weeks prior to departure, if possible.

“Generally, we say at least four weeks. Most vaccines, depending on if it's just a single dose, take at least 10 to 14 days to become effective,” Nguyen said.

There are, however, some two-dose vaccines, so health experts advise you to plan ahead to have a safe and healthy trip.

For more information, you can contact the Northwestern Medicine Travel Clinic at (312) 926-3155.

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Find a Clinic

There are several places you can get vaccines and medicine before you travel.

Call your doctor or local health department to see if they can provide pre-travel advice, vaccines, and medicines.

List of health departments

If you want to see a travel medicine specialist, the International Society of Travel Medicine (ISTM) can help you find a clinic.

Directory of travel clinics

If you need yellow fever vaccine you must get vaccinated at an authorized yellow fever vaccine clinic. Many of these clinics also give other shots and medicines.

Yellow fever vaccine clinic search

Find where you can get a COVID-19 vaccine in your area.

Need to get tested? Find a COVID-19 testing clinic .

• Find out what vaccines you need for your destination
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Traveler Advice
• Clinician Tools and Resources

CDC provides these links as a convenience to international travelers. CDC does not endorse, recommend, or favor any clinics on these lists, nor does the appearance of a clinic on these lists imply a guarantee of service quality.

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Northwestern University in Qatar

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Travel Health

Students in NU-Q sponsored trips benefit from health insurance provided by NU-Q. Students must provide accurate trip data to their trip administrators in order for them to determine the most adequate insurance option. In addition, students are expected to review their determined insurance plan, learn about how to use it and their coverage limitations before traveling. NU-Q provides the following insurance options while traveling:

• Seib : All full time enrolled students and part time enrolled seniors in their last semester participate in a private comprehensive health insurance plan ( https://my.qatar.northwestern.edu/student-life/wellness/insurance.html ). The policy includes worldwide coverage for a limited period of 90 days abroad. Please, keep in mind that medical services out of the local and regional provider network may be reimbursement based instead of direct billing. Therefore, it is important that when seeking a medical service, students should first contact the customer care representative to verify the medical service is reimbursable or is a covered medical procedure. For more information about this insurance policy please contact Customer Care: [email protected]

For students traveling in a NU-Q sponsored trip for more than 90 days:

• Visiting Scholar Plan : students traveling to the United States on academic travel for more than 90 days are enrolled in the Visiting Scholar Plan provided by Home Campus. See details: https://www.northwestern.edu/risk/risk-insurance/university-insurance-programs/visiting-scholars/
• Other insurance providers : for students traveling on short term non-credit bearing travel for more than 90 days, NU-Q will look for the most adequate insurance plan offered by different providers

Other relevant information:

• COVID-19: NU-Q will provide an insurance plan that covers direct or indirect related to COVID-19 expenses.
• Out of pocket medical expenses: Some insurance plans do not provide direct billing when medical services are required out of the plan network, so students may need to pay out of pocket the medical expenses. NU-Q provides a student emergency and essential needs fund that is available for those unable to meet immediate, essential expenses because of temporary hardship related to an unexpected situation: https://my.qatar.northwestern.edu/student-life/wellness/emergency-fund.html
• Travel dates extensions: students who wish to change their scheduled itinerary on a trip arranged and paid by NU-Q are responsible for procuring their own insurance plans for the extended period of time.

Questions related to coverage should be directed to the Qatar Health & Wellness Office at [email protected] .

Uplifting their future colleagues

• Community Engagement
• Feinberg School of Medicine
• Student Experience

Mentorship was instrumental in getting Rishi Jain ’23 to where he is today, as a first-year medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“My ability to apply to a program like Northwestern’s and the knowledge early on that I wanted to pursue something like health care came from having a great support system,” Jain said.

Jain remembers the dedication of his high school mentor, who, on top of a demanding Ph.D. program and a role as the school’s cross-country coach, always made time for tutoring him and other STEM students.

“His enthusiasm and motivation have stuck with me,” Jain said. “For him, being a good mentor not only meant career advice, but being a friend, someone to fall back on in terms of any challenges in life.”

Not long after Jain arrived at Northwestern as an undergraduate, Irene Quan ’23, approached him and several of his classmates with an idea: They could be part of the support system for others hoping to embark on careers in health care.

In 2021, the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences students founded the student organization Project MED (Medicine, Exposure, Development). Spearheaded by Quan, the student organization focuses on educating and preparing Chicago-area high schoolers for careers in health care, particularly those from underserved communities. This year, the organization has a new chapter at Feinberg.

“Those opportunities for me when I was a kid were extremely foundational, so being able to see that carry on to the people we serve now has been really great,” said Valentina Velasco ’23, a first-year student in Feinberg’s MD/MPH program who also co-founded Project MED.

Since its inception, Project MED has taken a three-pronged approach: learn, lead and launch. Learn comes in the form of the group’s events, such as speaker panels and workshops that teach students about health topics and professions. Recent events included a brain dissection with a corresponding neuroscience lesson and a physical therapy speaker panel.

Project MED’s second pillar, lead, covers the group’s near-peer mentorship program, which pairs Northwestern undergraduate students with local high schoolers who aspire to medical careers. Its third and final pillar, launch, comprises a database that connects students with more than 750 opportunities for research, volunteering or shadowing that can help them jumpstart their pre-professional careers.

A new chapter

Thanks to the Project MED founders who have moved on to Feinberg, the organization’s undergraduate chapter now has a complementary one at the medical school.

The newly minted medical students plan to use what they learn in class to create engaging lectures and small group discussions for Project MED students. Given Feinberg’s various degree programs, working with the medical school also offers a chance to expand students’ exposure to different health care careers — Project MED is currently partnering with students in Feinberg’s physician assistant program to offer high school students problem-based learning sessions.

On a logistical level, they hope the Feinberg chapter can streamline the process for Project MED activities involving the school and standardize programming so it can be made available to more area students.

The year of growth for Project MED doesn’t stop there. The organization now partners with six area high schools, and it’s even looking to launch chapters at other postsecondary institutions. Additionally, the undergraduate chapter recruited a record number of student mentors this year — 52 students looking to help the ones who will come after them.

“We have a lot of people that are really interested in passing down those lessons they’ve learned, especially if they relate to that experience of being in less well-resourced high schools and wanting to give back to their communities,” said Aru Singh, a fourth-year neuroscience student in Weinberg and one of Project MED’s founders, who currently leads the undergraduate chapter.

Paving the path for future health care professionals

For Quan, the effect Project MED’s work can have hit home when she helped chaperone one of Project MED’s first anatomy lab field trips at Feinberg. Now a first-year student in the medical school’s MD/MPH program, Quan still remembers seeing the joy on students’ faces as they left the lab.

“One student, she was talking to her friend and taking off her equipment, and she was saying, ‘This was the coolest thing ever. This is everything I’ve wanted to do,’” Quan said. “And I thought that was just a pure moment of happiness, excitement. Honestly, I felt that after the lab, too, so being able to see that in some of our students was super uplifting.”

Since 2021, the organization has coordinated dozens of workshops, presentations and speaker panels for more than 330 high school students. Its founders hope it continues to operate long after they’ve secured their own medical degrees.

“Even if it's one student, or just a dozen students, each of those individual success stories is very meaningful in itself,” Jain said. “You’re paving the path for students to do what they want to do, to join you in your field. That’s a very fulfilling feeling, that you’re uplifting your future colleagues, your peers and people who you want to see working right next to you one day.”

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Driving Innovations in Biostatistics with Denise Scholtens, PhD

“I'm continually surprised by new data types. I think that we will see the emergence of a whole new kind of technology that we probably can't even envision five years from now…When I think about where the field has come over the past 20 years, it's just phenomenal.”  —  Denise Scholtens, PhD  

• Director, Northwestern University Data Analysis and Coordinating Center (NUDACC)  
• Chief of Biostatistics in the Department of Preventive Medicine  
• Professor of Preventive Medicine in the Division of Biostatistics and of Neurological Surgery  
• Member of Northwestern University Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (NUCATS)  
• Member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center  

Episode Notes 

Since arriving at Feinberg in 2004, Scholtens has played a central role in the dramatic expansion of biostatistics at the medical school. Now the Director of NUDACC, Scholtens brings her expertise and leadership to large-scale, multicenter studies that can lead to clinical and public health practice decision-making.    

• After discovering her love of statistics as a high school math teacher, Scholtens studied bioinformatics in a PhD program before arriving at Feinberg in 2004.  
• Feinberg’s commitment to biostatistics has grown substantially in recent decades. Scholtens was only one of five biostatisticians when she arrived. Now she is part of a division with almost 50 people.  
• She says being a good biostatistician requires curiosity about other people’s work, knowing what questions to ask and tenacity to understand subtitles of so much data.   
• At NUDACC, Scholtens and her colleagues specialize in large-scale, multicenter prospective studies and clinical trials that lead to clinical or public health practice decision-making. They operate at the executive level and oversee all aspects of the study design.  
• Currently, Scholtens is involved with the launch of a large study, along with The Ohio State University, that received a $14 million grant to look at the effectiveness of aspirin in the prevention of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy.  
• Scholtens first started her work in data coordinating through the Hyperglycemia Adverse Pregnancy Outcome (HAPO) study, which looked at 25,000 pregnant individuals. This led to a continued interest in fetal and maternal health.   
• When it comes to supportive working environments, Scholtens celebrates the culture at Feinberg, and especially her division in biostatistics, for being collaborative as well as genuinely supportive of each other’s projects. She attributes this to strong leadership which established a culture with these guiding principles.   

Additional Reading  

• Read more about the ASPIRIN trial and other projects taking place at NUDACC   
• Discover a study linking mothers’ obesity-related genes to babies’ birth weight, which Scholtens worked in through the HAPO study   
• Browse all of Scholtens recent publications 

Recorded on February 21, 2024.

Continuing Medical Education Credit

Physicians who listen to this podcast may claim continuing medical education credit after listening to an episode of this program..

Target Audience

Academic/Research, Multiple specialties

Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this activity, participants will be able to:

• Identify the research interests and initiatives of Feinberg faculty.
• Discuss new updates in clinical and translational research.

Accreditation Statement

The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

Credit Designation Statement

The Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine designates this Enduring Material for a maximum of 0.50  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™.  Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

American Board of Surgery Continuous Certification Program

Successful completion of this CME activity enables the learner to earn credit toward the CME requirement(s) of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program. It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit learner completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting ABS credit.

All the relevant financial relationships for these individuals have been mitigated.

Disclosure Statement

Denise Scholtens, PhD, has nothing to disclose.  Course director, Robert Rosa, MD, has nothing to disclose. Planning committee member, Erin Spain, has nothing to disclose.  FSM’s CME Leadership, Review Committee, and Staff have no relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies to disclose.

Read the Full Transcript

[00:00:00] Erin Spain, MS: This is Breakthroughs, a podcast from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. I'm Erin Spain, host of the show. Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine is home to a team of premier faculty and staff biostatisticians, who are the driving force of data analytic innovation and excellence here. Today, we are talking with Dr. Denise Scholtens, a leader in biostatistics at Northwestern, about the growing importance of the field, and how she leverages her skills to collaborate on several projects in Maternal and Fetal Health. She is the Director of the Northwestern University Data Analysis and Coordinating Center, NUDACC, and Chief of Biostatistics in the Department of Preventive Medicine, as well as Professor of Preventive Medicine and Neurological Surgery. Welcome to the show.  

[00:01:02] Denise Scholtens, PhD: Thank you so much.  

[00:01:02] Erin Spain, MS: So you have said in the past that you were drawn to this field of biostatistics because you're interested in both math and medicine, but not interested in becoming a clinician. Tell me about your path into the field and to Northwestern.  

[00:01:17] Denise Scholtens, PhD: You're right. I have always been interested in both math and medicine. I knew I did not want to be involved in clinical care. Originally, fresh out of college, I was a math major and I taught high school math for a couple of years. I really enjoyed that, loved the kids, loved the teaching parts of things. Interestingly enough, my department chair at the time assigned me to teach probability and statistics to high school seniors. I had never taken a statistics course before, so I was about a week ahead of them in our classes and found that I just really enjoyed the discipline. So as much as I loved teaching, I did decide to go ahead and invest in this particular new area that I had found and I really enjoyed. So I wanted to figure out how I could engage in the field of statistics. Decided to see, you know, exactly how studying statistics could be applied to medicine. At the time, Google was brand new. So I literally typed in the two words math and medicine to see what would come up. And the discipline of biostatistics is what Google generated. And so here I am, I applied to grad school and it's been a great fit for me.  

[00:02:23] Erin Spain, MS: Oh, that's fantastic. So you went on to get a PhD, and then you came to Northwestern in 2004. And so tell me a little bit about the field then and how it's changed so dramatically since.  

[00:02:36] Denise Scholtens, PhD: So yes, I started here at Northwestern in 2004, just a few months after I had defended my thesis. At the time there was really an emerging field of study called bioinformatics. So I wrote my thesis in the space of genomics data analysis with what at the time was a brand new technology, microarrays. This was the first way we could measure gene transcription at a high throughput level. So I did my thesis work in that space. I studied at an institution with a lot of strengths and very classical statistics. So things that we think of in biostatistics like clinical trial design, observational study analysis, things like that. So I had really classic biostatistics training and then complimented that with sort of these emerging methods with these high dimensional data types. So I came to Northwestern here and I sort of felt like I lived in two worlds. I had sort of classic biostat clinical trials, which were certainly, you know, happening here. And, that work was thriving here at Northwestern, but I had this kind of new skillset, and I just didn't quite know how to bring the two together. That was obviously a long time ago, 20 years ago. Now we think of personalized medicine and genomic indicators for treatment and, you know, there's a whole variety of omics data variations on the theme that are closely integrated with clinical and population level health research. So there's no longer any confusion for me about how those two things come together. You know, they're two disciplines that very nicely complement each other. But yeah, I think that does speak to how the field has changed, you know, these sort of classic biostatistics methods are really nicely blended with a lot of high dimensional data types. And it's been fun to be a part of that.  

[00:04:17] Erin Spain, MS: There were only a handful of folks like you at Northwestern at the time. Tell me about now and the demand for folks with your skill set.  

[00:04:26] Denise Scholtens, PhD: When I came to Northwestern, I was one of a very small handful of biostatistics faculty. There were five of us. We were not even called a division of biostatistics. We were just here as the Department of Preventive Medicine. And a lot of the work we did was really very tightly integrated with the epidemiologists here in our department and we still do a lot of that for sure. There was also some work going on with the Cancer Center here at Northwestern. But yeah, a pretty small group of us, who has sort of a selected set of collaborations. You know, I contrast that now to our current division of biostatistics where we are over 20s, pushing 25, depending on exactly how you want to count. Hoping to bring a couple of new faculty on board this calendar year. We have a staff of about 25 statistical analysts. And database managers and programmers. So you know, when I came there were five faculty members and I think two master's level staff. We are now pushing, you know, pushing 50 people in our division here so it's a really thriving group.  

[00:05:26] Erin Spain, MS: in your opinion, what makes a good biostatistician? Do you have to have a little bit of a tough skin to be in this field?  

Denise Scholtens, PhD: I do think it's a unique person who wants to be a biostatistician. There are a variety of traits that can lead to success in this space. First of all, I think it's helpful to be wildly curious about somebody else's work. To be an excellent collaborative biostatistician, you have to be able to learn the language of another discipline. So some other clinical specialty or public health application. Another trait that makes a biostatistician successful is to be able to ask the right questions about data that will be collected or already have been collected. So understanding the subtleties there, the study design components that lead to why we have the data that we have. You know, a lot of our data, you could think of it in a simple flat file, right? Like a Microsoft Excel file with rows and columns. That certainly happens a lot, but there are a lot of incredibly innovative data types out there: wearables technology, imaging data, all kinds of high dimensional data. So I think a tenacity to understand all of the subtleties of those data and to be able to ask the right questions. And then I think for a biostatistician at a medical school like ours, being able to blend those two things, so understanding what the data are and what you have to work with and what you're heading toward, but then also facilitating the translation of those analytic findings for the audience that really wants to understand them. So for the clinicians, for the patients, for participants and the population that the findings would apply to.   

Erin Spain, MS: It must feel good, though, in those situations where you are able to help uncover something to improve a study or a trial.  

[00:07:07] Denise Scholtens, PhD: It really does. This is a job that's easy to get out of bed for in the morning. There's a lot of really good things that happen here. It's exciting to know that the work we do could impact clinical practice, could impact public health practice. I think in any job, you know, you can sometimes get bogged down by the amount of work or the difficulty of the work or the back and forth with team members. There's just sort of all of the day to day grind, but to be able to take a step back and remember the actual people who are affected by our own little niche in this world. It's an incredibly helpful and motivating practice that I often keep to remember exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing and who I'm doing it for.  

[00:07:50] Erin Spain, MS: Well, and another important part of your work is that you are a leader. You are leading the center, NUDACC, that you mentioned, Northwestern University Data Analysis and Coordinating Center. Now, this has been open for about five years. Tell me about the center and why it's so crucial to the future of the field.  

[00:08:08] Denise Scholtens, PhD: We specialize at NUDACC in large scale, multicenter prospective studies. So these are the clinical trials or the observational studies that often, most conclusively, lead to clinical or public health practice decision making. We focus specifically on multicenter work. Because it requires a lot of central coordination and we've specifically built up our NUDACC capacity to handle these multi center investigations where we have a centralized database, we have centralized and streamlined data quality assurance pipelines. We can help with central team leadership and organization for large scale networks. So we have specifically focused on those areas. There's a whole lot of project management and regulatory expertise that we have to complement our data analytics strengths as well. I think my favorite part of participating in these studies is we get involved at the very beginning. We are involved in executive level planning of these studies. We oversee all components of study design. We are intimately involved in the development of the data capture systems. And in the QA of it. We do all of this work on the front end so that we get all of the fun at the end with the statistics and can analyze data that we know are scientifically sound, are well collected, and can lead to, you know, really helpful scientific conclusions.  

[00:09:33] Erin Spain, MS: Tell me about that synergy between the clinicians and the other investigators that you're working with on these projects.  

[00:09:41] Denise Scholtens, PhD: It is always exciting, often entertaining. Huge range of scientific opinion and expertise and points of view, all of which are very valid and very well informed. All of the discussion that could go into designing and launching a study, it's just phenomenally interesting and trying to navigate all of that and help bring teams to consensus in terms of what is scientifically most relevant, what's going to be most impactful, what is possible given the logistical strengths. Taking all of these well informed, valid, scientific points of view and being a part of the team that helps integrate them all toward a cohesive study design and a well executed study. That's a unique part of the challenge that we face here at NUDACC, but an incredibly rewarding one. It's also such an honor and a gift to be able to work with such a uniformly gifted set of individuals. Just the clinical researchers who devote themselves to these kinds of studies are incredibly generous, incredibly thoughtful and have such care for their patients and the individuals that they serve, that to be able to sit with them and think about the next steps for a great study is a really unique privilege.  

[00:10:51] Erin Spain, MS: How unique is a center like this at a medical school?  

[00:10:55] Denise Scholtens, PhD: It's fairly unique to have a center like this at a medical school. Most of the premier medical research institutions do have some level of data coordinating center capacity. We're certainly working toward trying to be one of the nation's best, absolutely, and build up our capacity for doing so. I'm actually currently a part of a group of data coordinating centers where it's sort of a grassroots effort right now to organize ourselves and come up with, you know, some unified statements around the gaps that we see in our work, the challenges that we face strategizing together to improve our own work and to potentially contribute to each other's work. I think maybe the early beginnings of a new professional organization for data coordinating centers. We have a meeting coming up of about, I think it's 12 to 15 different institutions, academic research institutions, specifically medical schools that have centers like ours to try to talk through our common pain points and also celebrate our common victories.  

[00:11:51] Erin Spain, MS: I want to shift gears a little bit to talk about some of your research collaborations, many of which focus on maternal and fetal health and pregnancy. You're now involved with a study with folks at the Ohio State University that received a 14 million grant looking at the effectiveness of aspirin in the prevention of hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. Tell me about this work.  

[00:12:14] Denise Scholtens, PhD: Yes, this is called the aspirin study. I suppose not a very creative name, but a very appropriate one. What we'll be doing in this study is looking at two different doses of aspirin for trying to prevent maternal hypertensive disorders of pregnancy in women who are considered at high risk for these disorders. This is a huge study. Our goal is to enroll 10,742 participants. This will take place at 11 different centers across the nation. And yes, we at NUDACC will serve as the data coordinating center here, and we are partnering with the Ohio State University who will house the clinical coordinating center. So this study is designed to look at two different doses to see which is more effective at preventing hypertensive disorders of pregnancy. So that would include gestational hypertension and preeclampsia. What's really unique about this study and the reason that it is so large is that it is specifically funded to look at what's called a heterogeneity of treatment effect. What that is is a difference in the effectiveness of aspirin in preventing maternal hypertensive disorders, according to different subgroups of women. We'll specifically have sufficient statistical power to test for differences in treatment effectiveness. And we have some high priority subgroups that we'll be looking at. One is a self-identified race. There's been a noted disparity in maternal hypertensive disorders, for individuals who self identify according to different races. And so we will be powered to see if aspirin has comparable effectiveness and hopefully even better effectiveness for the groups who really need it, to bring those rates closer to equity which is, you know, certainly something we would very strongly desire to see. We'll also be able to look at subgroups of women according to obesity, according to maternal age at pregnancy, according to the start time of aspirin when aspirin use is initiated during pregnancy. So that's why the trial is so huge. For a statistician, the statisticians out there who might be listening, this is powered on a statistical interaction term, which doesn't happen very often. So it's exciting that the trial is funded in that way.  

[00:14:27] Erin Spain, MS: Tell me a little bit more about this and how your specific skills are going to be utilized in this study.  

[00:14:32] Denise Scholtens, PhD: Well, there are three biostatistics faculty here at Northwestern involved in this. So we're definitely dividing and conquering. Right now, we're planning this study and starting to stand it up. So we're developing our statistical analysis plans. We're developing the database. We are developing our randomization modules. So this is the piece of the study where participants are randomized to which dose of aspirin they're going to receive. Because of all of the subgroups that we're planning to study, we need to make especially sure that the assignments of which dose of aspirin are balanced within and across all of those subgroups. So we're going to be using some adaptive randomization techniques to ensure that that balance is there. So there's some fun statistical and computer programming innovation that will be applied to accomplish those things. So right now, there are usually two phases of a study that are really busy for us. That's starting to study up and that's where we are. And so yes, it is very busy for us right now. And then at the end, you know, in five years or so, once recruitment is over, then we analyze all the data,  

[00:15:36] Erin Spain, MS: Are there any guidelines out there right now about the use of aspirin in pregnancy. What do you hope that this could accomplish?  

 Prescribing aspirin use for the prevention of hypertension during pregnancy is not uncommon at all. That is actually fairly routinely done, but that it's not outcomes based in terms of which dosage is most effective. So 81 milligrams versus 162 milligrams. That's what we will be evaluating. And my understanding is that clinicians prescribe whatever they think is better, and I'm sure those opinions are very well informed but there is very little outcome based evidence for this in this particular population that we'll be studying. So that would be the goal here, would be to hopefully very conclusively say, depending on the rates of the hypertensive disorders that we see in our study, which of the two doses of aspirin is more effective. Importantly, we will also be tracking any side effects of taking aspirin. And so that's also very much often a part of the evaluation of You know, taking a, taking a drug, right, is how safe is it? So we'll be tracking that very closely as well. Another unique part of this study is that we will be looking at factors that help explain aspirin adherence. So we are going to recommend that participants take their dose of aspirin daily. We don't necessarily expect that's always going to happen, so we are going to measure how much of their prescribed dose they are actually taking and then look at, you know, factors that contribute to that. So be they, you know, social determinants of health or a variety of other things that we'll investigate to try to understand aspirin adherence, and then also model the way in which that adherence could have affected outcomes.  

Erin Spain, MS: This is not the first study that you've worked on involving maternal and fetal health. Tell me about your interest in this particular area, this particular field, and some of the other work that you've done.  

[00:17:31] Denise Scholtens, PhD: So I actually first got my start in data coordinating work through the HAPO study. HAPO stands for Hyperglycemia Adverse Pregnancy Outcome. That study was started here at Northwestern before I arrived. Actually recruitment to the study occurred between 2000 and 2006. Northwestern served as the central coordinating center for that study. It was an international study of 25,000 pregnant individuals who were recruited and then outcomes were evaluated both in moms and newborns. When I was about mid career here, all the babies that were born as a part of HAPO were early teenagers. And so we conducted a follow up study on the HAPO cohort. So that's really when I got involved. It was my first introduction to being a part of a coordinating center. As I got into it, though, I saw the beauty of digging into all of these details for a huge study like this and then saw these incredible resources that were accumulated through the conduct of such a large study. So the data from the study itself is, was of course, a huge resource. But then also we have all of these different samples that sit in a biorepository, right? So like usually blood sample collection is a big part of a study like this. So all these really fun ancillary studies could spin off of the HAPO study. So we did some genomics work. We did some metabolomics work. We've integrated the two and what's called integrated omics. So, you know, my work in this space really started in the HAPO study. And I have tremendously enjoyed integrating these high dimensional data types that have come from these really rich data resources that have all, you know, resulted because of this huge multicenter longitudinal study. So I kind of accidentally fell into the space of maternal and fetal health, to be honest. But I just became phenomenally interested in it and it's been a great place.  

[00:19:24] Erin Spain, MS: Would you say that this is also a population that hasn't always been studied very much in biomedical science?  

[00:19:32] Denise Scholtens, PhD: I think that that is true, for sure. There are some unique vulnerabilities, right, for a pregnant individual and for the fetus, right, and in that situation. You know, the vast majority of what we do is really only pertaining to the pregnant participant but, you know, there are certainly fetal outcomes, newborn outcomes. And so, I think conducting research in this particular population is a unique opportunity and there are components of it that need to be treated with special care given sort of this unique phase of human development and this unique phase of life.  

[00:20:03] Erin Spain, MS: So, as data generation just really continues to explode, and technology is advancing so fast, faster than ever, where do you see this field evolving, the field of biostatistics, where do you see it going in the next five to ten years?  

[00:20:19] Denise Scholtens, PhD: That's a great question. I think all I can really tell you is that I'm continually surprised by new data types. I think that we will see an emergence of a whole new kind of technology that we probably can't even envision five years from now. And I think that the fun part about being a biostatistician is seeing what's happening and then trying to wrap your mind around the possibilities and the actual nature of the data that are collected. You know, I think back to 2004 and this whole high throughput space just felt so big. You know, we could look at gene transcription across the genome using one technology. And we could only look at one dimension of it. Right now it just seems so basic. When I think about where the field has come over the past 20 years, it's just phenomenal. I think we're seeing a similar emergence of the scale and the type of data in the imaging space and in the wearable space, with EHR data, just. You know, all these different technologies for capturing, capturing things that we just never even conceived of before. I do hope that we continue to emphasize making meaningful and translatable conclusions from these data. So actionable conclusions that can impact the way that we care for others around us. I do hope that remains a guiding principle in all that we do.  

[00:21:39] Erin Spain, MS: Why is Northwestern Medicine and Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine such a supportive environment to pursue this type of work?  

[00:21:47] Denise Scholtens, PhD: That's a wonderful question and one, honestly, that faculty candidates often ask me. When we bring faculty candidates in to visit here at Northwestern, they immediately pick up on the fact that we are a collaborative group of individuals who are for each other. Who want to see each other succeed, who are happy to share the things that we know and support each other's work, and support each other's research, and help strategize around the things that we want to accomplish. There is a strong culture here, at least in my department and in my division that I've really loved that continues to persist around really genuinely collaborating and genuinely sharing lessons learned and genuinely supporting each other as we move toward common goals. We've had some really strong, generous leadership who has helped us to get there and has helped create a culture where those are the guiding principles. In my leadership role is certainly something that I strive to maintain. Really hope that's true. I'm sure I don't do it perfectly but that's absolutely something I want to see accomplished here in the division and in NUDACC for sure.  

[00:22:50] Erin Spain, MS: Well, thank you so much for coming on the show and telling us about your path here to Northwestern and all of the exciting work that we can look forward to in the coming years.  

[00:22:59] Denise Scholtens, PhD: Thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed this.  

[00:23:01] Erin Spain, MS: You can listen to shows from the Northwestern Medicine Podcast Network to hear more about the latest developments in medical research, health care, and medical education. Leaders from across specialties speak to topics ranging from basic science to global health to simulation education. Learn more at feinberg. northwestern.edu/podcasts.  

Northwestern State heads to Lubbock for Corky/Crofoot Shootout

LUBBOCK, TX. (NSU) - The much-anticipated Southland Conference championships are just around the corner, but first, there is one final tune-up prior to that meet.

In a two-day meet, the Northwestern State track and field teams travel to the campus of Texas Tech for the Corky/Crofoot Shootout.

The meet begins Friday at the Fuller Track and Field Complex.

Day one starts at noon with the men’s javelin. The running events start at 7:30 p.m. and will go until around 11:30 p.m.

Saturday’s running events are the distance competitions, beginning at 7:30 a.m., while the women’s and men’s triple jumps kick off the field events, starting at 11 a.m. Competition will wrap up around 5 p.m.

NSU is a regular to Texas Tech in the indoor season, but not so much during the outdoor schedule. The teams traveled to Lubbock again this indoor season.

“I am really looking forward to competing at Texas Tech,” head coach Mike Heimerman said. “There is going to be some great competition and we are going to be just looking to improve in the events we are competing in.

“We continue to build heading into outdoor conference. All the athletes have been doing tremendously and I am just really looking forward to some great competition against some terrific athletes. Our training has been going great and mentally and physically, we are good.”

One of those who has been building has been thrower Kaitlyn Washington, who tossed a personal best in the discus in Baton Rouge, breaking 170-0 for the first time with a 170-2.

Washington had not thrown a 160-0 and further in the discus until the Texas Relays and Bobcat Invitational. Now, she has done so in each of her last four meets, including her personal-best 170-2 at the LSU Alumni Gold. She broke her previous best distance of 169-2, which was set at the Bobcat Invitational last month.

Overall, NSU holds the conference’s top spot in a dozen events, including all four in the discus and shot put.

After such a fantastic freshman season, many people wondered what Sanaria Butler would do for an encore.

All she is done is seemingly break a school or conference record….or both, every meet. Last time out, it happened to be both, as she sprinted to an impressive time of 52.11 in the 400-meter dash at the LSU Alumni Gold.

That not only is the top mark in the SLC, but also the 22nd best time nationally, the fourth-best time among non-power conference schools.

In the trip to Lubbock in the indoor season, Butler continued her season with another statement, running a 52.92 in the 400-meter dash, which broke the SLC record previously held by former NSU sprinter  Natashia Jackson.

Fellow sprinter Keontae Gaines ran a 10.22 in Baton Rouge, tied for the second-fastest run in the 100-meter dash in the SLC this outdoor season.

Like Butler, Gaines also enjoyed a terrific visit to Lubbock in February.

In the 60-meter dash, Gaines ran a 6.68 in the prelims to finish seventh out of 22 contestants.

If that weren’t enough, he bested that mark in the finals, racing to a 6.62 to grab sixth in the event.

That time is the third-best in school history and top time by someone other than Zachaeus Beard.

After two weeks off, the teams head to Houston on the campus of Rice for the SLC Outdoor Championships, beginning May 9, as the teams aim to finish on top after both coming in second in 2023.

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Copyright 2024 NSU. All rights reserved.

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Collections Update: April 2024 (Part 2)

The Galter Library is constantly striving to update our electronic resources and bring current tools to our patrons' desktops. Titles that the Library added to its electronic collections in Spring 2024 include:

• Back to Basics: Ethics for Behavior Analysts
• Berman's Pediatric Decision Making (5th ed)
• Birth Figures: Early Modern Prints and the Pregnant Body
• Covid Chronicles: A Comics Anthology
• Health Communication Models and Practices in Interpersonal and Media Contexts
• Modern Intervention Tools for Rehabilitation
• Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations: Cardiovascular System (3rd ed)
• Netter Collection of Medical Illustrations: Integumentary System (3rd ed)
• Part 1- Brain (3rd ed)
• Part II- Spinal Cord and Peripheral Motor and Sensory Systems (3rd ed)
• Neuroradiology: The Core Requisites (5th ed)
• Ocular Pathology   (9th ed)
• On Call: Principles and Protocols   (7th ed)
• Pandemics and Ethics 
• Patient as a Person 
• Patient Safety: Investigating and reporting Serious Clinical Incidents   (2nd ed)
• Practical Dermatologic Surgery 
• Practical Genetic Counseling for the Laboratory 
• Principles of Forensic Pathology 
• Problems and Pitfalls in Medical Literature: A Practical Guide for Clinicians 
• Pseudo-Paracelsus: Foregery and Modern Alchemy, Medicine and Naturual Philosophy 
• Psychiatrist's Guide to Advocacy 
• Public Health 101: Improving Community Health   (4th ed)
• Public Health, Public Trust and American Fragility in a Pandemic Era 
• Red Book Atlas of Pediatric Infectious Diseases   (5th ed)
• Resnick's Bone and Joint Imaging   (4th ed)
• Seeing Patients: A Surgeon's Story of Race and Medical Bias
• Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Deformation   (5th ed)
• Stevens and Lowe's Human Histology  (6th ed)
• Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together 
• Textbook of Palliative Communication 
• Transforming Racial and Cultural Lines in Health and Social Care 
• Unfavorable Result in Plastic Surgery: Avoidance and Treatment   (4th ed)
• Untangling the Thread of Racism: A Primer for Pediatric Health Professionals 
• Volpe's Neurology of the Newborn   (7th ed)
• Why It's OK to Trust Science 

New MIT Press Direct to Open monographs include :

• Inducing Immunity? : justifying immunization policies in times of vaccine hesitancy
• Making Modern Medical Ethics : how African Americans, anti-Nazis, bureaucrats, feminists, veterans, and whistleblowing moralists created bioethics
• May We Make the World? : gene drives, malaria, and the future of nature
• More Than a Health Crisis : securitization and the US response to the 2013-2016 Ebola outbreak

New and related titles added to subscribed titles include:

• Chem Catalysis
• Lancet Child & Adolescent Health
• Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology
• Trends in Chemistry

Looking for other books and resources in library collections? Use the search box on the  home page  of the Galter website.  The Galter Guide,  How to Find Resources , provides tips on how to search for print books, e-books, how to search inside multiple books simultaneously, and more.

Updated: April 25, 2024

Northwestern

Big Ten Championships

Northwestern Readies for Big Ten Men’s Golf Championships

4/25/2024 9:36:00 AM | Men's Golf

‘Cats enter postseason coming off three straight top-four finishes

Big Ten Championships start Friday ?? pic.twitter.com/SrocwQJXg6 — Northwestern Golf (@NUGolf_Live) April 25, 2024

Bucket list travel on a budget: Expert tips for airfare, loyalty programs, credit card perks and more

Nicky Kelvin from The Points Guy dives into ways to save this summer.

Many travelers have their sights set on summer getaways , but with everything from baggage fees to fuel costs impacting the price of a ticket, "Good Morning America" is asking travel experts to share tips for booking bucket list destinations on a budget and finding savings along the way.

Travel expert Nicky Kelvin, senior director of content for The Points Guy, offered his tips for affordable travel techniques.

Where to find the best flight deals

Kelvin encourages travelers to utilize Google Flights and other free price-tracking tools to compare fare prices and snag the best deal.

He also suggests using both the calendar and map features within Google Flights to see which airports, dates and destinations how the lowest fare.

From the Google Flights homepage on a computer, click "explore destinations" and select a departure city without adding a destination. Then zoom out on the map to see the best prices for destinations all over the world.

Get the most out of free travel loyalty programs

Travelers should be earning points for anything and everything that they are buying or booking from airline and hotels to car rentals, Kelvin said.

In addition to the points that can can help travelers earn free flights and hotel stays, Kelvin said to look for extra perks just for joining.

Hyatt rewards, for example, offers all guests free breakfast.

For Thrifty Car Rental and Dollar Car Rental, he said you can add your spouse or domestic partner as an additional driver for free.

Loyalty programs are great for airlines too. JetBlue, for example, allows enrolled customers -- even if they don't have enough points for a flight -- to use points for discounts. Plus, with any airline, as you accumulate points to earn status, you can get free seating upgrades.

Travel credit cards with cash back perks

Along with earning points, travel credit cards give you protection for your trip like insurance to help with lost or damaged baggage and trip cancellation protection

Chase debuts new airport lounge: Gourmet menus, sleek interiors, free facials redefine hospitality for airport travel

As for credit cards, The Points Guy team suggests the Capital One Venture Rewards credit card as an all-around pick -- you get 75,000 miles after meeting your minimum spend in the first three months. Which Kelvin said is a value of over $1,300.

If you're looking to earn the most miles, he said look to the Chase Sapphire Preferred Card.

"You'll earn the most points on all your purchases with this one," he said.

Finally, if you want a credit card with no fee, Kelvin suggested the Bilt Mastercard, which he said is particularly great for renters because you can earn points on what's likely someone's biggest expense.

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What to know about new Venice entry fee, other summer destinations with a tourist tax

Save money on international phone plans for summer trips.

If someone's trip is taking them out of the country, using a cell phone internationally can cost $10 to 15 per day. For a family of four, that's more than $400 for a week.

If your phones support eSIM, Kelvin suggested purchasing a data plan for your destination through an app such as Airalo, Truphone or GigSky.

For example, one of Airalo's global SIM plans costs $9 for one week, which could save a family close to $350 dollars, depending on their existing international coverage.

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