Lee Erdman is a senior at Saint Joe who runs cross country and enjoys science. Over the few last year she has been working on a groundbreaking discovery for science.

Erdman started the project, investigating the use of whole blood versus component therapy on hospital length of stay, at the end of her freshman year and has been involved ever since. Starting on something so big as a freshman is a very big accomplishment.

She have been involved with IRB proposal preparation, presenting findings, and data collection. They found that hospital length of stay was reduced an average of 3.09 days in patients who received whole blood. The connections made between blood and the length of time is a different discovery that no one has really thought about exploring.

Erdman most recently presented the findings of the study at Memorial Hospital Grand Rounds (a monthly presentation with a “keynote” speaker each month). These presentations are picked from a wide range of groups and to be picked and have the opportunity to present is a major accomplishment.

Last month, she was first author on a poster regarding the findings that was presented at the American Academy of Emergency Medicine Mediterranean Congress in Rhodes, Greece. The poster won second place; she also talked about the poster in her presentation.

Erdman also has been involved with other research that resulted in a publication.

Over the years she has explored her love of science in order to find data, in hopes in help not only science but also others.