Written by Solaf Al Awadhi, MBBS, MSc., Scientific Writer
Dr. Andrea Meinders, currently a general surgery resident at Houston Methodist Hospital, embarked on a two-year research fellowship in June 2022. This fellowship, funded by the Burroughs-Wellcome Fund through the Texas A&M Academy of Physician Scientists, was carried out at the Patient Engagement Research Laboratory. With an undergraduate degree in Psychology and a passion for surgery, Dr. Meinders quickly became an integral part of the research team.
“I have always found my patients’ psychosocial barriers to be both the most frustrating and, potentially, the most intervenable reasons for not receiving optimal transplant care,” she says.
During her fellowship, Dr. Meinders worked on various projects that aligned with the lab’s key research priorities—expanding access to optimal treatments, reducing racial disparities, ensuring informed decision-making, and improving health outcomes. Her research explored critical areas in transplant surgery, including whether more deceased donor organs are recovered through donor care units in hospitals versus community hospitals. She also identified opportunities to help living donor candidates more successfully complete evaluation and donation and studied ways to improve clinical outcomes in liver transplantation.
Her work resulted in significant contributions to the field. She presented 13 presentations at national conferences, published four first-author manuscripts, and played a vital role in submitting a funded National Institutes of Health R01 grant investigating predictors of dropout before becoming living donors. Additionally, she received the “Best in Hepatology” award at the International Liver Transplantation Society (ILTS) 2024 congress for her abstract on the impact of pre-transplant hepatic encephalopathy status on long-term post-liver transplant outcomes.
Reflecting on her time in the lab, Dr. Meinders shared, “I enjoyed meeting people and learning new perspectives about transplant, outside of the surgeon’s perspective. Working with the staff and faculty of the Patient Engagement, Diversity, and Education lab introduced me to many leaders and researchers in transplant, both in surgery and outside of surgery, who provided unique insights into pre- and post-transplant patient care.”
Dr. Amy Waterman, Director of the lab, added, “The opportunity to learn went both ways with Andrea, since her expertise as a physician, understanding of data within electronic health records, and familiarity with transplant patients helped all of our research.”
As Dr. Meinders concludes her research fellowship, the team in the Patient Engagement, Diversity, and Education Research Laboratory acknowledges her many successes and contributions, wishing her all the best as she continues her training at Houston Methodist Hospital. Dr. Waterman notes, “I am so proud to get to say that I was involved, in a small way, with helping to grow another female transplant surgeon and leader in our field.”