The rapidly expanding fund of basic and mechanistic research that is better defining the pathophysiology ofhuman disease must be accompanied by clinician scientists well versed in the clinical investigativetechniques required to apply this knowledge and who are acculturated to an environment of integrativescience involving close collaboration with fundamental scientists. Programs focusing on health careprofessional 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 basicmedical research. However, complementary programs for training in the complexities of clinical investigationhave not been developed or evaluated to the same extent. Furthermore, such programs must instill withinthe clinician investigator a culture of interaction and collaboration with basic scientists The Aims of thistraining proposal in predoctoral clinical research propose solutions to some of the major barriers to theeffective training in clinical investigation and present a strategy for evaluation of whether the curriculumaddresses the critical need for increasing numbers clinician scientists. Specifically, this program will provideto predoctoral nursing, dental, and medical students a novel innovative curriculum of biostatistics, studydesign and ethical content of research in an interactive team learning approach and delivered as a corecurriculum to all students in these respective programs at The Ohio State University, as well as outsideinstitutions for whom videoconference participation will be offered. These students will have the opportunityto enter into a short course experience in the performance of clinical research, and in an intensive year-longcurriculum culminating in a Master of Public Health with emphasis in Clinical Investigation. The program willfurther promote culture of collaborative science by incorporating seminars with basic and translationalscientists. Through a career tracking mechanism, it will establish the success of this program throughcomparison with training delivered to basic and translational scientist trained in the same environment
