The proposed Pediatric Health Services Research Training program is a five-year plan to train Physician Fellows in the problems, methods, and relevant perspectives in child-focused health services research. The application proposes to support 6 post-doctoral Physician Fellows per year, by means of three-year traineeships, with two Physician Fellows entering the program each year. The goal of the program is to prepare Physician Fellows for future research careers, through the provision of (a) a solid and multifaceted academic foundation; (b) experience in the conduct of genuine, highly rigorous research; and (c) socialization into the normative behavior of ethically sensitive research conduct and it s associated values. To do so, the training program incorporates five core components: coursework, research opportunities, professional socialization, relevant clinical activity, and teaching opportunities. The proposed program builds on the success of the initial five-year funding period, which represented the first NIH-funded pediatric health services research training program for Physician Fellows. The initial program was notable for the productivity record of the participating Physician Fellows, including first-author publications, extramural funding, and continued involvement in research beyond the fellowship training period, and for program innovations related to formalizing mentor assignment methods; implementation of standardized evaluation tools; institution of a Fellows seminar series; expansion of strategies for recruitment of candidates from underrepresented minority groups; and collaboration with pediatric subspecialty programs on the joint recruitment of fellow candidates interested in combining subspecialty clinical training with health services research training. The primary unit for the proposed program is the Division of General Pediatrics at the University of Michigan; supporting units are the Department of Health Management & Policy, School of Public Health, and the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program, School of Medicine.
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