The principal mission of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Women~s Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) Career Development Center is to promote health and prevent disease in women by expanding the pool of well-trained, imaginative, productive investigators in the field of women's reproductive health. It is our purpose to recruit and prepare outstanding candidates to acquire the new skills needed to reach this goal. In recent years, board-certified obstetrician-gynecologists from even the most renown institutions have experienced difficulty in obtaining faculty positions and establishing independent research programs following traditional 2-3 year postdoctoral fellowships. This challenge to a once successful approach can be traced to four major causes: 1) decreasing reimbursement for clinical services, 2) changes in undergraduate and graduate medical curricula, 3) increased competition for federal research dollars, and 4) the ever increasing complexity of contemporary research methodologies. To meet the challenge of this new era we propose a mentored, structured Scholarship program of sufficient duration, adequate relevant course work, immersion into a vibrant, intellectually challenging, academic research community and """"""""hands-on"""""""" research experience leading to the ability to be a productive, independent and funded junior faculty member. Further, we feel that, even during the initial years of a junior faculty position, appropriate scientific mentoring allows the individual to overcome the initial hurdles leading to a rewarding, successful and productive academic career. Scholars pursuing biomedical research in reproductive science will do so under the aegis of the Reproductive Endocrinology Center. Those Scholars pursuing investigative careers in clinical research will receive their training from faculty in our Family Planning Institute, and Clinical and Outcomes Research Group. Transnational research experience will be gained through participation in studies bridging these biomedically and clinically oriented groups within the Department. Moreover, Scholars will benefit from the long-standing multi disciplinary partnerships with other colleagues at USCF. Long-term, we envision a cadre of Scholars trained at the USCF Women~s Reproductive Health Research Career Development Center who are helping to improve the health status of women by conducting important fundamental and clinical research, expanding knowledge, and discovering and testing innovations for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of reproductive disorders in women.
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