Anesthesiology is an interdisciplinary discipline that requires its practitioners to have a broad fund of knowledge that traverses pharmacology, physiology, and engineering with the ability to apply this knowledge in both controlled and emergency situations. In addition to providing trainees with exceptional clinical knowledge, the Anesthesiology Department as well as the larger academic community at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), provides a world-class environment for the development of high quality training in research. Two particular basic science research strengths at UCSD include the Departments of Pharmacology and Engineering. Anesthesiologists including both basic scientists and clinicians have long standing interactions and collaborations with faculty in these two disciplines as the interests mirror the major clinical concerns of anesthesiology, the use of pharmacologic agents to best manage patients and to invent and create solutions that require engineering to enhance patient care. Our interactions and collaborations have spanned established faculty, junior physician scientist, fellows and residents. Thus, the primary goal of this T32 grant application is to formalize and take to the next level research training that has been occurring at UCSD and specifically in the Department of Anesthesiology with collaboration in Pharmacology and Engineering. This training grant will provide post-graduate trainees (MDs or MD/PhDs) with a 2-year research experience consisting of a broad focus on the basic molecular mechanisms of drug action and/or exploration of a variety of engineering disciplines. There is emphasis upon defining novel insights into mechanisms of drug action that can lead to development of therapeutic interventions and in applying engineering principles to create devices, model physiology and pathophysiology using mathematical and theoretical approaches, investigate biomaterials to facilitate non-invasive monitoring and generation of biometric data, etc. From a practical perspective, to achieve this overall goal, the training experience has two specific aims: i) expose the fellows to a culture of science and investigation present in the Department specifically and the campus broadly and ii) achieve competency in the allied elements of a research career, e.g. experimental design, data analyses, presentations, manuscript preparation and publication and how best to obtain research funding as well as lab management and job interview skills. Importantly, we strongly emphasize issues of collegiality and ethics in the research environment. In achieving our strong commitment to the development of the clinician scientist, our overriding mission is the training of the next generation of clinician scientists who have the foundation of knowledge and fundamental tools coupled with the passion and commitment to affect translational research.
The goal of this training program is to develop the next generation of clinician-scientist in the field of Anesthesiology. We propose a unique training experience that takes core clinical problems in anesthesiology and utilize collaborative research experiences and efforts among the Departments of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, and Engineering to solve these problems.
