The mission of the University of Minnesota Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) is to train a diverse group of intellectually gifted students to become physician scientists and leaders in the global effort to preserve and restore human health. Our philosophy is to recruit students with the highest caliber intellectual skills and character traits to pursue a rigorous, supportive training sequence that results in the awarding of both a MD and PhD in 8 years or less. Our program integrates clinical medicine and scientific discovery through all phases of training. Research opportunities with outstanding faculty mentors are abundant and diverse, and include the biomedical sciences, biomedical engineering, chemical engineering, chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and epidemiology, as well as a new opportunity to obtain a PhD in biomedical informatics and computational biology. MSTP trainees directly benefit from Minnesota's investment in new state-of-the-art research and clinical facilities, and an aggressive commitment to physician scientist training across the career continuum by the Medical School under the leadership of a new Dean. Based on results from our evaluation plan, our new MSTP leadership team has implemented significant programmatic changes that have enhanced mentoring, advising, and career development of our trainees. Key features of our training program include a new longitudinal clinical continuity experience during the graduate phase, a revised governance structure that emphasizes student input and ownership, a student-led and expanded annual retreat, a monthly student meeting, a monthly Women in Science and Medicine meeting, enhanced support for submission of fellowship applications, a structured mechanism for students to develop a comprehensive and diverse mentor network, enhanced mentoring and advising through key checkpoints in the Program by our leadership team, and the utilization of an annual Individual Development Plan for continuous advising and counsel. During the past funding cycle, our trainees have published in top-tier journals and 14 of our current trainees have obtained NIH F30 or F31 awards. All but one student entering our Program during the past five years is still in the Program, and we have a 95% retention rate over the last 10 years. Our trainees have successfully matched in outstanding residency and PSTP programs and are transitioning to academic faculty positions. Our application numbers are the highest ever, with a 72% increase in applications compared to 2009. Our applicant pool is national in scope and changes to our recruiting plan have resulted in a higher applicant yield. A total of 21% of our current student cohort is from Diversity Categories A, B or C. We have developed new approaches for increasing the successful recruitment of students from diverse backgrounds, including a pre-MSTP summer undergraduate research program. Over the next five years, we propose to increase our incoming class size from 8 to 10 students per year. We are requesting increased MSTP support in this renewal application to reflect our success in matriculating, retaining and training top-tier MSTP students.
The University of Minnesota Medical Scientist Training Program (MD/PhD) provides a rigorous, supportive program of study for an outstanding and diverse group of students who will become leading physician scientists. By combining medical training with research training that will lead to new scientific discoveries, this integrated trainng program will help meet the nation's critical need for investigators who can successfully translate scientific discoveries into new preventive strategies and therapies that will improve the lives of patients.
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