Hey, my name is Isaac Gamwo and my mentor is Dr. Charles Jonassaint. I will be working this summer on the development and analysis of an application. This application is a pain assessment tool that goes by the name Painimation. This app was primarily made in order to assess pain outcomes in a unique and effect fashion. This project is centered around three goals. The first goal is to see what exactly the association is between Painimation and traditional pain assessment tools. This is being done through Pitt+Me where participants will do multiple questions and then the Painimation pain study sequence. The second goal is to analyze the accuracy of our tool. We will line up the actual medical diagnoses with our responses on Painimation to see if the expected diagnoses from the responses are accurate. The third goal is to develop a further understanding of how the types of pain and severity of that type of pain are valid to be assessed using animations. Knowing this can assist us in the future to see what factors into different pain experiences and among different individuals. This research is important to me because it help prevent language barriers and can reduce ambiguity when trying to express your pain to a doctor. Rather than using the vague 1-10 or 1-100 scales given to you at your doctors’ office, we believe in using a series of images, analogies, and specific descriptions that anyone can understand to assess people’s pain.

My big picture goal is to become a doctor, but in the near future, I want to go to med school. In addition to the med school, I may want to pursue something like an MSTP or PhD because recently I’ve become more attached to the research that I’m doing and, in the future, I always want to be qualified to do research. Brackenridge helps me because it gives me and my mentor a consistent agreement to stay with the research the whole summer without me or him fading off or getting out of touch. I also enjoy the opportunity to interact with other people doing all different types of research. This could allow me to be introduced to a field of research that interests me that I wasn’t even aware of.

My major is Psychology (Pre-Med).

My minor is French and Chemistry w/ a certificate in conceptual foundations of medicine.

My favorite cereal is cocoa puffs.