The mission of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) is to train physician-scientists who will become future leaders in biomedical and clinical research. It strives to recruit a diverse group of outstanding students and to provide them with rigorous combined medical and research training that prepares them for careers as physician-scientists. Through a flexible and continuously evolving curriculum, the students'are guided with a program that can be tailored to individual needs and interests. The program seeks to provide the trainees with a unique foundation for careers as independent physician- scientists and to facilitate their placement into outstanding postgraduate training programs to enable the next step in their career progression. The training program has 3 phases. In the first 2 years students take an integrated combination of medical, graduate and MSTP-specific courses to provide the didactic foundation for their research and clinical training. They perform research rotations to assist in choosing their thesis research lab. In the program's 2nd phase they perform independent, original research under their mentor's guidance, publish their discoveries and prepare and defend a Ph.D. thesis. In the final phase, they complete their clinical training. The admissions process focuses on academic excellence, prior research experience and enthusiasm for a research career. 124 trainees are in the program, 43% are woman and 15% are members of underrepresented minorities. Since its inception in 1964 as one of the first NIH MD-PhD training programs, 289 trainees have graduated. 224 have completed postgraduate training and published over 10,000 papers, an average of 53 per graduate. 82% have jobs at academic medical centers, research institutes, and NIH or pharmaceutical companies. By various measures the program graduates have achieved outstanding success in their chosen careers and have contributed to the advancement of biomedical research and academic medicine. Based on the quality of our past accomplishments we propose to expand the program, to further integrate graduate and medical training, and increase opportunities for involvement in clinical and translational research in order to prepare a future generation of physician-scientists who will be at the leading edge of biomedical research with the ultimate goal of improving human health and reducing the burden of disease.
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