Chinenye Christa Nnoromele and Chloe Slocum are physicians from Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham & Women’s Hospital.
Christa Nnoromele is currently a senior Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation resident at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital within the Mass General Brigham network. Upon completing her residency this June, she will be moving on to complete a fellowship in Spinal Cord Injury Medicine at Shirley Ryan Ability Lab at Northwestern in Chicago.
Dr. Slocum MPH is a practicing spinal cord injury physician, Associate Director of Quality at Mass General Brigham Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, and Director of Health Policy at Harvard Medical School’s Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. Her clinical work centers around optimizing long-term health for individuals with paralysis and her research is focused on assessing functional outcomes following rehabilitation, access to high-quality primary and specialty care, and systems of health care delivery across the post-acute care continuum for individuals with disabilities. Dr. Slocum has published research on functional outcomes following traumatic spinal cord injury and has lectured nationally on topics ranging from spinal cord injury outcomes to health policy and payment reform to clinician well-being.
They recently presented their research at the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation assembly, looking at women’s health in spinal cord injury.
SSN: What drove you to choose physical medicine as a career – and rehabilitation in particular?
Dr Nnoromele (pictured left): I actually found out about physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R) pretty late into my med school career. When I was finally exposed to the field, I pretty much changed everything around last minute to pursue PM&R. In this field, I found physicians that were both caring for the medical needs of their patients, but these were doctors who also cared about how these patients were going to thrive and function after a diagnosis. Physiatrists are clinicians who treat the whole patient, and look into ways to better assist their everyday life goals. Once I saw this in practice, I knew I couldn’t pursue any other field in medicine.
Dr. Slocum (pictured right: I enjoyed many of my rotations as a medical student – pediatrics, obstetrics, neurology – but I liked the focus on the whole patient and the importance of getting people back to activities they enjoy in the community in physical medicine and rehabilitation (PM&R).
SSN: It is clear that the healthcare industry has been greatly impacted by the pandemic, what has been the greatest impact for you within your research and industry?
Dr. Nnoromele: In a way, the pandemic has almost improved accessibility for research and interacting with our patients during the pandemic. Prior to Covid-19, telemedicine was not nearly as mainstream as it is now. With spinal cord injury patients, often times they have difficulty attending their appointments because of the travel needs and assistance they need. With the use of telemedicine, we have gained access to seeing patients in their home; seeing how they are functioning at home, what resources they have. It has been beneficial from that regard.
In addition, there have been benefits from the standpoint of research. It has been great to