The objective of the Baylor Research Training Program for Pediatricians is to provide didactic structure and mentoring for post-doctoral M.D. fellows, who are committed to academic careers in pediatric subspecialties. The department has three highly focused T-32 training grants supporting only 13% of such postdoctoral fellows in the department. Our program's strength ties in the availability of the resources of one of the largest Departments of Pediatrics in the country', which include: 1) well established, peer review funded, pediatric investigators with a track record of mentoring; 2) excellent research resources, programs and facilities; and 3) a large number of fellowship programs that attract high quality young pediatricians. The proposed training plan will: 1) facilitate the development of their individual didactic and research training programs; 2) provide stipends to protect time for their individual research and educational efforts; 3) provide educational support in the area of study design, statistics, molecular biology, and/or other cognates; 4) assure an appropriate and successful Mentor match; and 5) make available the resources of the Department and Baylor College of Medicine to facilitate their cost effective research activities. The proposed program has 45 clinical and basic science investigators as mentors. All mentors have active research programs and vast majority of them have expertise in mentoring physician-scientists. Scholars will develop a 5-page research proposal with their mentors as part of their applications to the program. All applications will be reviewed by an Executive Advisory Committee selected from the overall mentoring faculty. The educational support is derived from the clinical and basic science curricula at Baylor, together with divisional and departmental seminar series. Over the last 10 yrs we have successfully used this approach to mentored research training for the academic development of pediatric faculty in the Children's Health Research Center grant, which has fostered the career development of 32 physician investigators, of which 80% remain in academic medicine, 21 of which are current members of the Baylor faculty. We believe this success reflects the departmental and institutional commitment to the training of young physician scientists. The funding of this program will help train academic pediatricians who will improve the health and care of the next generation of children in our country and throughout the world.
