Short Term Research Training: Students in Health Professional Schools

Yale University, New Haven CT

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Abstract

Yale School of Medicine has a long tradition and record of accomplishments in training medical students for careers in academic medicine and research. This application is a competitive renewal of a training grant (Short- Term Training: Students in Health Professional Schools) that was first awarded in 2015 and is now in its 10th consecutive year. The program’s purpose is to continue providing intensive short-term training in research for selected predoctoral medical students in 63 of the most outstanding laboratories and training sites at the Yale School of Medicine. The specific training will range from fundamental molecular biology and cellular physiology to applied clinical research in areas of interest to the NIDDK. The program is designed to attract highly qualified medical students into careers as physician-scientists in the biomedical sciences and in NIDDK domains. A recently conducted follow up of students appointed during the previous funding period demonstrates a record of superb research training and research productivity indicated by 299 publications, 46 oral presentations or posters at regional or national meetings, and 75 subsequent research grant awards. We aim to continue these achievements. Trainees will be pre-doctoral medical students who have completed at least one year of their medical school curriculum in good standing. Thirty students per year will be selected competitively for this short-term training support based on the quality of a formal written proposal and the quality of the mentor and training environment. The ultimate goal of this program is to support a renewable physician scientist pipeline that can fulfil the NIDDK’s strategic objectives related to scientific workforce development. This goal will be accomplished through the following specific aims: 1) To support all interested medical students who wish to participate in a mentored research experience in areas of interest to NIDDK during the early part of medical school, and to actively pursue a research project throughout their four years of medical school; 2) To provide robust instruction in tenets of rigor with focused instruction on NIDDK research; and 3) To encourage our most select NIDDK and NIH funded faculty members to offer robust opportunities for medical student research training in NIDDK-related laboratories and clinical research groups. This training program has shown exemplary performance over the past 10 years of continuous funding as tangibly demonstrated by the research productivity and achievements of its trainees. In the next funding cycle, it will continue to benefit from Yale’s well established medical student research infrastructure while continuing to align with evolving priorities in research and education. These efforts will ensure its success in supporting the development of a sustainable scientific workforce capable of accomplishing the NIDDK’s mission.