UConn School of Medicine medical students had a strong showing at a national otolaryngology conference to present their research findings.

The Combined Otolaryngology Spring Meetings took place in New Orleans on May 14-18 with several rising fourth-year UConn medical students participating.

“Research experience is important for our UConn medical students because it helps with refinement of their problem-solving skills and understanding how medicine advances,” says ENT Professor Dr. Kourosh Parham, program director for the Division of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery at UConn School of Medicine. “Our students recognize the need for hard work and the necessity to engage in a large range of extracurricular activities from volunteerism/community service to research and leadership.  Consequently, our students get involved early ‐ most in their first year of medical school. What is impressive is that each of our students takes on multiple research projects, some of which they are the lead on. Many publish their results in leading journals.”

For the second year in a row, UConn medical students had a big presence at the national ENT conference.

Patrick Adamczyk delivered a well-received podium presentation on a clinical investigation of tinnitus biomarkers.

Heather McClure presented the results of her multi-institutional (UConn, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, and Johns Hopkins) collaborative research on workplace accommodation for workers with hearing loss.

Mohsin Mirza presented the results of his original research defining newly discovered symptoms of hyperparathyroidism.

Fleur Kabala presented the surgical management protocol for primary hyperparathyroidism.

Gabrielle Caron presented the surgical management of a nasal dermoid.

Rohit Makol presented the results from one of the studies he conducted during his research fellowship at NYU.  This study focused on AI-powered speech recognition models in evaluating cochlear implant users.

In addition, Tyler Pion, DO, a third-year otolaryngology resident at UConn, presented the results of an investigation led by Uma Mehta, a rising fourth-year medical student.

These medical students entering their last year of medical school are all interested in pursuing ENT residency and plan on participating in the 2026 National Match Day.

“Matching for a competitive field such as ENT demands that the applicants have a solid research background,” says Parham who shared how the national statistics show the average number of research projects an applicant to ENT residency participated in at the 2025 match was more than a dozen.

Parham adds, “The mentorship by ENT faculty have been very fruitful as demonstrated by the number of presentations by our medical students at national meetings and the successful results of the 2025 match with five students successfully matching to ENT.  That was the largest number of students from a UConn medical school class to match to ENT.”

He concludes, “We hope that the presence of our students on the national stage this year will be a predictor of another successful match in 2026.”