This Month’s Article and Related Activities

This Month’s Article and Directions

This month, we will read a new peer-reviewed journal article chosen by Dr. Ken Tao, “Telehealth virtual reality intervention reduces chronic pain in a randomized crossover study,” by Luana Colloca, Anna Han, Rachel Massalee, Nandini Raghuraman, Rachel L. Cundiff-O’Sullivan, Giancarlo Colloca, and Yang Wang, published in April 2025.

Directions:

• Try to thoroughly read this article (try to find a place where you can concentrate) and annotate the article as you read
  • For instance, while annotating, you might write down questions you have about the article, definitions to words you don’t know, underline important information, and summarize each section
    
• If you meet with your chapter this month, discuss the article with your peers before watching Dr. Tao’s video (and after)!
  
  
• Practice writing a 200-word summary of the article (draw on who, what, where, when, and why to start!)
  • “Written Communication,” or being able to express your ideas clearly in professional settings, is a Thinking and Reasoning AAMC Premed Competency!
    
• Bonus Activities:
  • Share your summaries with your chapter members and give each other detailed, helpful writing feedback
    
  • Write a 250-word reflection on the article
    • You might consider writing about one of Dr. Tao’s questions in the next lesson!
      
      
• After you read and reflect on the article, then proceed to the next lesson: Dr. Ken Tao’s reflection on the article.

Read the Article Here

Citation Fun Fact: You might notice that there are quite a few authors in this study, just like in many medical studies. We can actually just shorten the way we talk about these authors in APA citation to Colloca et al. (2025).

For example: “Colloca et al. (2025) explained in their article…“