Matthew Van De Graaf, Md Email and Phone Number

Resident Physician in Pediatrics, Primary Care Track at Children's National Hospital June 2022 - June 2025.

As a peer tutor, I provided a list of classes that I was willing to tutor and was subsequently paired with an EVMS student looking for a tutor. I provided individualized review and learning for students requesting peer tutoring across degree programs. I learned to adjust my plan for a tutoring session based on a student’s needs and to explain a topic in a variety of ways to accommodate different learning styles.

Dr. Saucerman’s lab merges computational modeling and experiments to discover molecular networks that control cardiac remodeling and regeneration. The lab members include physician scientists, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students, lab technicians, and undergraduate students.In my role, I primarily continued the research project that was part of my thesis as an engineering undergraduate student. Through a collaboration with another lab, I used automated imaging processing to develop an algorithm for identifying genetic regulators of cardiomyocyte hypertrophy in a genome-wide screen. I also initiated a new project aimed at using network analysis techniques to automate methods of inferring molecular signaling pathways. Several analyses that I developed have been used by the lab to apply for grant funding. I learned first-hand that the process of pursuing a project from start to finish often includes many set-backs that require adjustments and re-adjustments along the way.

I assisted resident physicians in the Emergency Department by documenting multiple aspects of the medical record including the HPI, review of systems, past medical, surgical, and family history, physical exam, and results from lab studies and imaging. I was selected to become a trainer of newly employed scribes with the responsibility to teach and train in the Emergency Department. I was also selected to serve as a member of the quality assurance team and worked to review Emergency Department documentation. My role as a scribe helped complete charts in a timely manner, allowing physicians to have more time for direct patient care, and I gained significant clinical experience and knowledge.