Behind every breakthrough at the University of Utah, there’s a researcher driven by curiosity, passion, and a commitment to solving real-world problems. Research Groundbreakers is dedicated to showcasing these innovators—the faculty, scholars, and entrepreneurs whose work is shaping industries, improving lives, and expanding knowledge. 

From securing competitive grants to launching startups and publishing groundbreaking research, each featured story highlights not just the achievement but also the impact. Through this column, we’ll share the personal motivations, challenges, and discoveries that define research at the U. 

Dr. Jessica Liu McMullin — Association for Academic Surgery’s Joel J. Roslyn Faculty Research Award: “The Cost Effectiveness of Screening Incidentalomas and Implementing Interventions to Improve Care”

It often starts with something unrelated—a car accident, unexplained stomach pain, or a routine scan. Then comes the surprise: a small mass spotted on the adrenal gland—small glands that sit above the kidneys and help control things like blood pressure and stress hormones. For many patients, this unexpected finding, called an adrenal incidentaloma, raises more questions than answers. What is it? Is it dangerous? And what should happen next?

While many adrenal incidentalomas are harmless, some can affect hormone levels and cause health problems such as high blood pressure or diabetes. Despite their prevalence, many patients do not receive appropriate follow-up or specialty care. 

Dr. Jessica Liu McMullin, an Endocrine Surgeon specializing in thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal diseases with University of Utah Health, is looking to change this. Her research focuses on how patients with this disease can be provided better care through implementing clinical decision support mechanisms. Her work aims to change that by developing evidence-based decision tools that ensure timely, guideline-driven evaluation and treatment.

“Low rates of follow up and workup for adrenal incidentalomas is an issue many endocrine surgeons face at multiple institutions nationally,” said McMullian, who is also an Associate Professor at the U. “I hope that my research will ultimately provide clinical decision support tools and other nationally applicable strategies to spread interventions to improve care of these patients outside of our health system.”

Dr. McMullin is the recipient of the Joel J. Roslyn Faculty Research Award from the Association for Academic Surgery (AAS). This prestigious national award supports early-career faculty surgeons conducting impactful research in academic medicine.

By being awarded this grant, McMullian said it will allow her to obtain important national data to truly benchmark how many people get appropriate guideline concordant care in this disease.

“This award will help us understand better what national trends and rates of workup are using insurance billing data,” she said. “This will serve as important preliminary data and help inform our decision analysis models so we can justify the benefit of appropriate care for these adrenal lesions in both a cost effectiveness analysis and in improved benefit to patients’ health.”

Collaborating with experts across endocrinology, radiology, cardiology, biomedical informatics, and communications plays a vital role in Dr. McMullin’s project.

“I have been fortunate to have mentors in multiple departments for this project,” she said. “Their input and expertise has been instrumental in coming up with a research strategy that will hopefully help us identify tools that any institution can use to improve the care they provide patients with adrenal disease.”

What’s the next big question Dr. McMullian is hoping to answer? She said she’s currently only focusing on one of four disease processes that can occur with adrenal incidentalomas, so she’d love to expand this research to include all functional adrenal disease.

Dr. McMullian’s research will have a big impact on healthcare, as developing good clinical decision support systems for adrenal disease can ultimately identify and treat up to an estimated 4 million patients with surgical treatable adrenal disease. 

“We will also be incorporating technology and biomedical informatics to help develop clinical support to use to better identify and appropriately manage these patients,” she said.

For more information on her research, contact Dr. McMullian.