Southern Arizona VA Health Care System Collaborative & Longitudinal Summer Training & Education in Research for Medical Students (SAVAHCS-CLUSTER-MD)

Southern Arizona Va Health Care System, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

This application seeks to renew the Southern Arizona VA Health Care System Collaborative & Longitudinal Summer Training & Education in Research for Medical Students (SAVAHCS-CLUSTER-MD) program that was established via the VA Summer Research Program Pilot. Participants are health professional trainees who have completed one-year of the didactic pre-research curriculum at the academic affiliate, the University of Arizona (UArizona) College of Medicine – Tucson (COM-T). SAVAHCS-CLUSTER-MD is integrated into the conclusion of the first-year didactics. The research and mentoring relationships established during the summer program extend into the clinical training years as part of an already established, longitudinal 4-year Scholarly Projects (SP) curriculum that prepares medical students for research and pairs trainees with research mentors, altogether providing the preparatory framework for a successful summer immersion program under the auspices of SAVAHCS-CLUSTER-MD. UArizona is an American Indian and Alaska Native-Serving Institution (per White House Executive Order 13592). UArizona is also designated by the US Department of Education as a Hispanic Servicing Intuition (HSI). Medical student trainees matriculate into SAVAHCS-CLUSTER-MD from COM-T that is replete with pathway-to-medicine programs aimed to support students of broad backgrounds and experiences. The early outcomes of the pilot program demonstrate accomplishment of initial programmatic goals covering trainee recruitment, onboarding into VA, continuation of the scholarly activity, return to VA for clinical education and dissemination of information. While the pilot program focused on programmatic execution and short-term outcomes, we now add innovative programmatic elements throughout three new objectives led by an expanded executive leadership team to now focus on longer-term impact. The mission of the program is to take early steps to form career trajectories by developing in trainees an identity as a scientifically-oriented student- physician and member of the VA community, which is carried out by providing invigorating research and high- quality mentorship, all built through collaborations that span mentees & mentors to the VA & academic affiliate. The programmatic mission is carried out by three new, tractable and measurable objectives that center on: providing stimulating research and scholarly opportunities, now equipped with an innovative return to VA research component to form durable scientific experiences (Objective 1), new partnerships that strengthen the mentorship skills of both faculty and trainees that emphasize preparation, communication and collaboration to form life-long mentoring bonds and fortify career trajectories (Objective 2), and leveraging novel infrastructure to obtain and assess participant feedback from both mentors and mentees to capture longer-term outcomes congruent with the timeline of the new 5-year RFA, all enabling continued programmatic modification to benefit participants and assess mission focus through programmatic agility and modification in response to feedback (Objective 3). In addition to the expanded executive leadership team, the program is bolstered by a cadre of 16 scientific and medical VA mentors to support the scientific and medical interests of trainees and who have biomedical expertise ranging across pharmacology, neurology, anesthesiology and pain medicine, genetics, surgery (vascular, neuro, otolaryngology, and transplantation), bioengineering, cardiology (heart disease, amyloidosis), RNA metabolism, neurodegenerative diseases, healthcare associated infections and microbial resistance, mitochondrial biogenesis and spinal cord injury. Taken together, SAVAHCS-CLUSTER-MD is built on outcomes of a short-term VA pilot to implement the program and now proposes to expand focus on quality of the experience, with innovative components imbedded in new objectives that altogether strengthen a longer- term mission, centered on building durable VA-centric research experiences and mentorship relationships to form career trajectories of early-stage medical trainees.