Student Spotlight: Wei Ni Zhou, M2
Congratulations to Wei Ni Zhou, a current M2 and 2025 MSSRP researcher, on her recent selection to present her research, Medical Optimization of Patients with Intermittenet Claudication in A Safety-Net Hospital Setting, at the 53rd Annual Symposium on Vascualr Surgery in March 2026. Her research explores the disease progression and treatment adherence in patients with lower extremity claudication (pain with walking that subsides with rest) at Boston Medical Center. Under the mentorship of Dr. Jeffrey Siracuse and surgery resident Dr. Andrea Alonso, they did a retrospective study of patients who were diagnosed with intermittent claudication (IC) at BMC from 2018-2025 and collected data on their first four clinic visits for claudication. Demographics, comorbidities, medications, symptoms, lifestyle modifications, progression to tissue loss/rest pain, and interventions were recorded.
Wei Ni enjoyed learning about peripheral artery disease in my undergraduate biochemistry class and wanted to learn about it further in a research setting. She was interested in researching disease progression over time and seeing how impactful treatment adherence was — especially in preventing progression to the point where one needs life changing interventions like a leg amputation.
Many patients with intermittent claudication are started on conservative therapies (such as smoking cessation, optimized medication use, and supervised exercise therapy). So far, there is limited data on how IC patients fare on these therapies long term, but this project offers insight on claudication progression in the setting of variable patient therapy adherence, comorbidities, and social determinants of health. Their research demonstrates that medical optimization for patients with IC in the safety-net setting is suboptimal and highlights the importance of continuing research in the following areas: how to decrease barriers for supervised exercise therapy, have better assessments of patients’ walking ability, and increase smoking cessation.
Her research experience has taught her that she truly enjoys doing clinical research. Prior to medical school, Wei Ni did not have as much exposure to retrspective chart studies and is grateful to have the opportunities to dive and explore something unfamiliar. She also learned that she enjoys translating her databases into variables that can be statistically analyzed since it involves problem solving and simple coding on Excel — both of which she notes she hasn’t done in a while!