We are excited to announce that Liz Nazzal, a talented medical student from the UNC School of Medicine (Class of 2025), has been awarded one of the American Urological Association’s (AUA) 2024–2025 Medical Student Fellowships.
Liz’s project, “The Influence of Past Discrimination on Patient-Surgeon Communication for Prostate and Kidney Cancer,” addresses critical issues in healthcare equity. Even with equal treatment for equally aggressive cancers, there remain unequal health outcomes for urologic cancers across different races and genders in the United States. Liz’s study aims to explore how everyday experiences of racism and discrimination impact patient-surgeon communication about treatment decisions. By evaluating the prevalence of past discrimination among patients in urologic oncology clinics, Liz’s research seeks to understand how these experiences influence perceptions of communication with surgeons.
Liz’s project complements a broader evaluation of a visual decision support tool developed by her mentor, Dr. Tan, with funding support from the American Cancer Society, UNC, and Novant Health. This tool, which incorporates various risk prediction outputs in a visual format, will be assessed for its impact on patient-surgeon communication, with the goal of reducing bias and increasing equity in healthcare.
We are incredibly proud of Liz’s achievements and look forward to the contributions her research will make towards advancing health equity and improving urological care. She will be entering the 2024-2025 urology residency match.
More About the Medical Student Fellowship Program
The AUA Medical Student Fellowship program, established in 2010, aims to inspire and train the next generation of urologic researchers via unique opportunity to engage in impactful research under the guidance of world-class urologic scientists. The program offers a $4,000 stipend for a mentored research experience lasting between 10 weeks to 12 months.