The purpose of this continuing multifaceted short-term research training program (MSRP) at The University of Arizona (UA) College of Medicine is to introduce, train and nurture medical students (including underrepresented minorities), in health-related basic and clinical biomedical research; and further, to provide the stimulus for subsequent intensive and extensive research experiences. We will build on the high level of student and faculty mentor participation and esprit-de-corps already generated and the outstanding record of trainee productivity in terms of research presentations, publications, awards, and advanced research efforts. The students full-time summer-vacation laboratory and clinical investigations will be fully integrated into an innovative Curriculum on Medical Ignorance (CMI), concentrated in a Summer Institute on MI (SIMI) and consisting of a wide variety of year-round trainee-related activities (seminars and workshops, clinical correlations, advanced extracurricular research through a new student-initiated Research Honors Distinction Track, and a new Introduction to Molecular Medicine laboratory practicum; and continuing research methodology/communications skills/ethics seminars, pondering rounds, visiting professorships, and career advising), open to all medical students.
CMI aims to foster attitudes and skills to recognize and deal with the vast shifting world of medical ignorance [""""""""what we know we don't know (current research), don t know we don t know (future discovery), and think we know but don't (error)'q in molecular and clinical medicine. Questioning, critical thinking, and leadership skills are specifically nurtured to create a mentoring chain reaction supportive of short-term and long-term student biomedical research at the local, regional and national level and throughout the continuum of science education. Paralleling the expansion of The University of Arizona's research strengths (faculty, facilities and extramural grant support), research emphasis areas are organized around the expanding UA Specialized Centers of Excellence as well as traditional departments and overseen by the Program Director, Associate Directors Basic-Clinical Science Advisors, and the faculty-elected Medical Student Research Committee. Research encompasses a spectrum of cross-cutting themes and in vivo, in vitro, in situ, and modeling approaches to the cardiovascular (CV) system and its disorders (cardiac contractility, hypertrophy, and development, CV genomics and proteomics, endothelial biology, biomaterials and CV prosthetics, microcirculatory physiology, lymphology, CV imaging); cancer (prevention, epidemiology, detection, tumor cell biology and immunology, drug development and pharmacogenomics, genetic profiling, gene therapy and immunomodulation); neurosciences (cognition, molecular psychiatry, neurotransmitters, drug addiction neurophysiology, neural regeneration, blood-brain barrier); molecular and clinical genetics/genomics and bioinformatics; and miscellaneous,, other topics of interest to the student researchers. Based on our 20-year track record to date reflected in the most recent MSRP followup we anticipate cultivating a large number of scientific physicians who understand and can contribute to the research enterprise and, in increasing numbers, a growing cadre of enlightened physician scientist leaders to replenish the dwindling supply of translational medical researchers. Detailed short-term and long-term formative and summative evaluation of the program and participants, including database registry, individual development plans, and career portfolios, will be continued to document effectiveness.
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