The goals of the proposed Digestive, Metabolic and Kidney Disease Research Education Program (DMKREP) are: 1) to expose 1st and 2nd year medical students early in their career decision making to state-of- the-art basic and translational research specifically in digestive, metabolic and kidney diseases, and 2) to reinforce these experiences longitudinally through education and mentoring emphasizing careers in academic science provided by an integrated academic Learning Community (LC) focused on the scientific principles and practice in these fields. The DMKREP employs an immersion model of medical student training and education, which reflects the Medical College of Wisconsin's four-fold mission of education, discovery, patient care and community engagement. These goals will be achieved through three integrated programs: First, students will receive rigorous, hands-on, fundamental research experiences within the research laboratories of NIH-funded MCW investigators in the fields of digestive, metabolic, and kidney diseases over a 10-week summer period. Second, the DMKREP participants also will be matched with a clinical mentor in a congruent area of digestive, metabolic or kidney disease. Students will be encouraged to shadow their clinical mentor in the outpatient clinic or hospital setting to gain early exposure to the clinical aspects of the disease they are studying in the laboratory. Third, participants will b integrated into the DMKREP's LC, which aims to engage the students throughout the remainder of their medical school education. The LC will sponsor monthly meetings with participating students to encourage continued progress on research projects (including work towards Honor's Research) and to foster continued learning in research and career development topics relevant to the mission of the DMKREP. The participants themselves will become part of the LC throughout their medical education program, as they encourage and interact with each other and subsequent groups of matriculants as they enroll in the DMKREP each summer. The overarching goal is educate and train a diverse workforce to address the nation's biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs in digestive, metabolic and kidney diseases that impact on human health.

Public Health Relevance

The Digestive, Metabolic and Kidney Disease Research Education Program (DMKREP) aims to foster the development of biomedical, behavioral and clinical researchers among medical students who are in the early stages of their career decision-making. The DMKREP's immersive approach exposes students to both the scientific principles underlying disease and their translation to new clinical paradigms during intense, summer experiences followed by long-term education and mentoring by a Learning Community focused on digestive, metabolic and kidney diseases that strongly impact on the health of millions of our citizens. The overall goal is to help ensure that an adequate supply of diverse, well-trained physician scientists is available to address the needs of the public in these interest areas.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
Type
Education Projects (R25)
Project #
5R25DK098104-02
Application #
8738644
Study Section
Digestive Diseases and Nutrition C Subcommittee (DDK)
Program Officer
Rankin, Tracy L
Project Start
2013-09-29
Project End
2018-08-31
Budget Start
2014-09-01
Budget End
2015-08-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2014
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Medical College of Wisconsin
Department
Internal Medicine/Medicine
Type
Schools of Medicine
DUNS #
City
Milwaukee
State
WI
Country
United States
Zip Code
53226
Baker, Maria Angeles; Davis, Seth J; Liu, Pengyuan et al. (2017) Tissue-Specific MicroRNA Expression Patterns in Four Types of Kidney Disease. J Am Soc Nephrol 28:2985-2992
Miller, Bradley; Palygin, Oleg; Rufanova, Victoriya A et al. (2016) p66Shc regulates renal vascular tone in hypertension-induced nephropathy. J Clin Invest 126:2533-46