The rapidly expanding fund of basic and mechanistic research that is better defining the pathophysiology of human disease must be accompanied by clinician scientists well versed in the clinical investigative techniques required to apply this knowledge and who are acculturated to an environment of integrative science involving close collaboration with fundamental scientists. Programs focusing on health care professional education in basic and translational research, such as the Medical Scientist Training Program, have been demonstrated to be effective for the training of health care professionals in careers in basic medical research. However, complementary programs for training in the complexities of clinical investigation have not been developed or evaluated to the same extent. Furthermore, such programs must instill within the clinician investigator a culture of interaction and collaboration with basic scientists The Aims of this training proposal in predoctoral clinical research propose solutions to some of the major barriers to the effective training in clinical investigation and present a strategy for evaluation of whether the curriculum addresses the critical need for increasing numbers clinician scientists. Specifically, this program will provide to predoctoral nursing, dental, and medical students a novel innovative curriculum of biostatistics, study design and ethical content of research in an interactive team learning approach and delivered as a core curriculum to all students in these respective programs at The Ohio State University, as well as outside institutions for whom videoconference participation will be offered. These students will have the opportunity to enter into a short course experience in the performance of clinical research, and in an intensive year-long curriculum culminating in a Master of Public Health with emphasis in Clinical Investigation. The program will further promote culture of collaborative science by incorporating seminars with basic and translational scientists. Through a career tracking mechanism, it will establish the success of this program through comparison with training delivered to basic and translational scientist trained in the same environment ? ? ?
