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, mentor, and prepare outstanding candidates to acquire and refine the skills needed to reach this goal. As one of the original institutions awarded a WRHR Center, we have established an infrastructure, curriculum, and Scholar mentoring system to meet the challenge of training the next generation of academic Obstetrician-Gynecologists. Based on the successes of two cohorts of Scholars over the past 10 years, we propose a structured Scholar program of sufficient duration, relevant didactic education, and immersion into a vibrant, intellectually challenging, research community, leading to academic independence. The education of our Scholars will be further enriched by our collaboration with the UCSF Clinical &Translational Science Institute (CTSI), which provides ongoing infrastructure, resource, training and research opportunities. We have learned that appropriate scientific and academic mentoring is mandatory during the initial years of a junior faculty appointment, helping the individual to overcome hurdles that impede a rewarding, successful and productive academic career. Scholars will be recruited to pursue two general areas, biomedical (laboratory-based) research and clinical research, in reproductive science. In addition, two general pathways (I and II) have been established to guide relatively inexperienced (Track I) and more senior Scholars (Track II), respectively. Translational research, a burgeoning focus within our department that has benefited from long-standing multidisciplinary partnerships, will be gained through participation in studies bridging the biomedically and clinically oriented projects. We are committed to nurturing a cadre of UCSF WRHR Scholars who will improve the health status of women by conducting important discovery, expanding knowledge, and testing innovations for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of reproductive disorders. Through our proposed mentoring program, we anticipate that our Scholars will be independent investigators and future leaders of women's reproductive health research nationally and internationally.
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