The goal of this application is to establish at Vanderbilt a mentored training program (V-StARR) for residents in Medicine or Pediatrics possessing both the aptitude and passion to become a new generation of basic, clinical and translational clinician-scientists. We will particularly focus on ?late bloomers?; i.e. those residents who decide to pursue a career as a clinician-scientist after acceptance to a standard clinical residency pathway. The overarching goal is to provide a nurturing mentored environment for Resident Investigators for 1-2 years of highly rigorous research training to facilitate successful transition to a research-focused fellowship and subsequent appointment as tenure track faculty with the ultimate goal of achieving independence as clinician- scientists. This new program will offer mentored training integrating with the proven and highly successful institutional clinician-scientist training programs at Vanderbilt. Each Resident Investigator will participate in workshops, courses, and our societies for clinician-scientist development and will develop and complete a mentored research project in an area of focus consistent with the missions of NHLBI. Investigation may be basic, translational, clinical or in the area of population health. The V-StARR training program will have five training slots at any given time to support Resident Investigators for a minimum of 80% protected research time for 1-2 years. Three of these slots will be funded by the R38 award and one slot each will be funded by the Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics. There will be a formal program selection process to identify the most competitive applicants. Due to Vanderbilt's outstanding reputation for training clinician-scientists, and the characteristics of the applicant pool to our residencies, we anticipate a strong cadre of applicants. The program will provide intense scientific mentorship and personalized career development. The Resident Investigators will have access to a cadre of 36 carefully selected preceptors with sustained NIH funding coupled with successful track records of mentoring early career scholars. Each Resident Investigator will have a personalized Scholarly Oversight Committee to assist in achieving program goals, to provide independent evaluation of their progress, and to develop, advise on, and track their career development plan. Assessment of Resident Investigators will include competency-based milestone assessments with equally rigorous program assessments. A core goal of the V-StARR program will be to promote diversity and inclusion in a highly intentional way. The Departments of Medicine and Pediatrics are fully integrated into the Vanderbilt School of Medicine and Medical Center, which ranks in the top 10 in NIH funding. All departments, hospitals, research laboratories and core facilities reside on a single campus offering an integrated research environment for early career clinician-scientists. The V- StARR program will ensure that Resident Investigators are eligible for certification by their respective ABMS board. We believe this proposal is consistent with the NHLBI's current Strategic Vision Statement.
The goal of this new application is to capture and engage the ?late bloomer? clinician-scientist by establishing a mentored training program for medicine and pediatric residents possessing both the aptitude and passion to become a new generation of basic, clinical and translational clinician-scientists. We will focus on research themes where Vanderbilt has internationally recognized programs of discovery combined with a record of sustained excellence in research mentorship. Each R38 Resident Investigator will have an individualized training program developed by the Preceptors and Training Directors in collaboration with a multidisciplinary scientific oversight team, and will be supported by a broad array of institutional and departmental resources with the expectation that graduates will transition to well-established long-term clinician-scientist career development programs at Vanderbilt.
