Francesca del Giorgio turned to study during a global pandemic into her master's thesis to see the impact of the COVID-19 on pediatric visits to the emergency room.
Name: Francesca del Giorgio (she/her)
Hometown: Montreal, QC
Degree: Master of Science in Epidemiology (2022)
Thesis: Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric cancer diagnoses and treatment, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence and severity of acute pediatric appendicitis <missing link>
Previous degree: Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Concordia University
Inspiration
My interest in medicine developed by the end of my bachelor’s degree when I began working as the clinical research coordinator for a large registry at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Montreal. Through this experience, I developed an interest in perinatal and pediatric epidemiology, specifically in maternal exposures and childhood outcomes.
I started my master’s program in September 2020. During the first months of the pandemic, worldwide reductions in pediatric emergency department visits were noted, which lead to concerns over delays in seeking medical attention due to fear of COVID-19 disease. I wanted to further investigate these changes in the incidence of pediatric conditions in the emergency department. My thesis focused on two pediatric diseases, appendicitis (requires immediate care) and cancers (known to be delayed in diagnosis and care). They each provide distinct information on healthcare utilization during the pandemic:
I ran an interrupted time-series analysis, which measures the impact of an event on the expected trend of an outcome. This kind of analysis accounts for secular trends and seasonality in visits, making the results more robust.
Impact
Surprisingly, I found that the incidence of pediatric appendicitis increased throughout the pandemic. It remains unclear what caused this increase, but the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated public health measures provide an opportunity to study triggers for acute conditions that were previously difficult to study.
Eye to the Future
More studying! I also hope to use the skills I acquired during my master’s to collaborate on governmental research projects. I will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Epidemiology because as challenging as completing my master’s during a global pandemic was, it has also made me realize the importance of epidemiological research.
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