The University of Virginia School of Medicine and Department of Pediatrics have a long track record and commitment to training clinician investigators. Ongoing training programs in Pediatric Cardiology and Nephrology have been very successful in producing independent clinician investigators. Based upon these successes in 1999 we proposed a new interdisciplinary training program for clinician investigators in Pediatric Cardiovascular Research with the goal to produce the future leaders in Academic Pediatrics. The new training grant increased the trainee pool, expanded the fellowship programs and helped recruit 20% minority applicants into the training program. We achieved our goal of 100% retention in the program and 6 out of the 7 graduates from the grant have entered academic careers. A unique feature of this program is that it provides opportunities for formal training in either a basic science or clinical investigation track. Half of our initial trainees have chosen the clinical investigation track and enrolled in Graduate degree programs in Health Evaluation Sciences or the non-degree Multi-disciplinary Training Program in Clinical Investigation sponsored by the NIH funded General Clinical Research Center. The basic science track involves close work with a primary mentor and collaboration with other mentors. Graduate courses and research centers including the NIH Center of Excellence in Pediatric Nephrology and the Cardiovascular Research Center provide further opportunities for training. The Mentors have a productive record of collaboration in research and research training and are committed to improving mentorship skills through the mentorship development program. The executive committee will provide structure and guidance for training and the Pediatric Fellows Training Program provides further didactic training and fosters an identity for the trainees. This training grant will continue to fill a growing need for research in pediatrics by offering cardiovascular research training to MD's in pediatric subspecialty training in cardiology or nephrology.
