Research

Faculty in Hospital Medicine Division are actively involved in research and other forms of scholarship that move the fields of medical education, quality improvement, and health services forward. 

• Lisa Beyers, MD
  Dr. Beyers’ interests include initiatives to improve the quality of hospital care for patients with end-stage liver disease and complications of cirrhosis.
• Amy Blatt, MD
  Dr. Blatt’s scholarship has focused on trainee assessment/evaluation, UME to GME transitions, and optimizing the clinical learning environment.
• John Grable, MD, PhD
  Dr. Grable’s research interest is in developing an inpatient tobacco treatment program, the Rochester Model. Most inpatient tobacco treatment programs hire specialized staff and are expensive to operate. The Rochester program uses existing staff nurses, physicians, mid-level providers, clerks and medical students to counsel patients while hospitalized and continue the treatments after discharge, and it is showing robust quit rates at a very low cost.
• Justin Hopkin, MD
  Dr. Hopkin has an interest in rare disease patient advocacy, rare disease registries and clinical development in rare disease patient populations including partnerships between regulatory agencies, researchers, clinicians, industry and patient communities.
• Ashley Jenkins, MD, MS
  Dr. Jenkins’ broad interest is to enable equitable healthcare access and delivery for youth and adults with childhood-onset conditions. As a med-peds hospitalist, her current focus and associated grant funding has been on building and leveraging collaborative and patient-inclusive teams to improve inpatient care for people with sickle cell disease by adapting and implementing evidence-informed interventions. Her hope is that this work will provide a foundation to improve hospital care for other marginalized populations of all ages.
• Valerie Lang, MD, MHPE
  Dr. Lang’s research focuses on medical education and faculty development. Her work explores curriculum development and evaluation, assessment of clinical reasoning, and professional identity formation among academic hospitalists.
• Alec O’Connor, MD, MPH
  Dr. O'Connor graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology, then obtained his M.D. from Indiana University School of Medicine in 1996. He completed internal medicine residency and a chief residency year at the University of Rochester in 2000. He is a past Program Director for the Internal Medicine Residency, a Professor of Medicine, and a practicing hospitalist at Strong Memorial Hospital. Dr. O’Connor is active in several ongoing projects studying different aspects of residency education and the clinical learning environment. Outside of medicine he enjoys running, cycling, cooking, travel, and supporting Manchester City.
• Mical Raz, MD, PhD
  Dr. Raz teaches courses related to health policy and politics in the University of Rochester Program for Public Health Related Majors, and her research focuses on the child welfare system. Her new project is a political history of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (1997). She is also involved in a project examining the legacy of racism within URMC and its historical roots. 
• Jennifer Readlynn, MD
  Dr. Readlynn's scholarship has focused on learner transitions, coaching in the clinical learning environment, managing hospitalized patients in times of high census, high-value care, and physician advocacy around voting. As Director of Acting Internships, she is interested in preparing medical students for the transition to residency and clinical skills coaching. As a hospitalist, Dr. Readlynn continues to look for ways to collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to improve the care of hospitalized patients. She is also a Deputy Editor for Digital Media for the Journal of Hospital Medicine.
• David Staudt, MD
  Dr. Staudt spent his childhood outside Milwaukee, WI. He completed his undergraduate education with a B.S. in Biology, and medical school at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Following, he moved to Philadelphia where he completed his residency training at the University of Pennsylvania. Since joining the University of Rochester in 2020, Dr. Staudt has focused heavily on clinical skills education and he currently directs the medical school ultrasound curriculum and is an associate director for the medicine clerkship. His academic interests center around educational program evaluation, particularly surrounding point-of-care ultrasound.
• Meghan Train, DO
  Dr. Train’s interests focus on medical education and quality improvement in the internal medicine residency and at the University of Rochester school of medicine and dentistry. Her focus on high value care, quality improvement and patient safety. A few of her current quality improvement initiatives include screening for food insecurity in hospitalized adult patients, reduction in unnecessary lab work, and increase in naloxone prescribing at the time of hospital discharge.
• Jennifer Zagursky, MD
  Dr. Zagursky is a native of Rochester, NY. She completed her undergraduate education in northern NY at St Lawrence University with a B.S. in Biochemistry. She then moved to Siena, Italy where she worked on initial vaccine research studies of tumor angiogenesis. She returned to the Rochester area where she was a baker for 2 years. Dr. Zagursky then moved to Philadelphia, PA and obtained her MD degree at Jefferson Medical College. She completed her residency at Strong Memorial Hospital of the University of Rochester. Since that time she has been a member of the Hospital Medicine Division and is the current Associate Division Chief of Hospital Medicine, APP Division.  She is the Director of Physician Advisors for Utilization Management, the Physician Advisor for the Safe Patient Handling Committee, and a Core Clinical Assessor for the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. In 2025 she started a new role as Compliance Medical Co-Director.