The OSCTR Professional Development (PD) Core is an essential component to facilitate the ability of the Oklahoma Shared Clinical and Translational Resources (OSCTR) to address its goals to mentor new and early-stage investigators across the clinical and translational research (CTR) pipeline to independence, to provide training and mentoring of CTR scientists to focus on the health issues of our populations, and to build capacity for CTR research within our community partners. During this first funding cycle, the PD Core supported programs that provided mentored training opportunities to more than 500 individuals. These programs spanned from a summer research experiences for undergraduate and graduate/professional students to a master's degree in clinical and translational science (CTS). The core developed the Translating Practice into Research program to provide intensive CTR training to rural, academic, and tribal clinicians from Oklahoma and other IDeA states to increase their ability to be valuable members of productive, multi- disciplinary research teams. Based upon the successes in building this initial infrastructure, the mission of the PD Core is evolving to prioritize efforts to increase the mentoring capacity and effectiveness in the state. The establishment of the Oklahoma Center for Mentoring Excellence (OCME) will allow the OSCTR to enhance the development of CTR researchers and provide a formal mentor training program to support the capacity- building missions of the IDeA programs in the region. OCME activities will include both workshops tailored to broad audiences of individuals interested in developing their mentoring skills, as well as targeted support to build a cadre of master mentors with the training and experience needed to effectively guide the professional development of CTR investigators. The OCME will provide a validated mentoring framework for junior investigators supported by the OSCTR. The PD Core will also build on institutional efforts to increase the competitiveness of our clinical faculty for NIH career development awards and provide mentoring to active K- award recipients. The PD Core will continue to support successful educational efforts of the OSCTR and will launch a new Certificate in CTS to facilitate CTR training within tribal and rural communities. Finally, the PD Core will support the development of a CTR education and training online toolkit that provides a consolidated site for dissemination of training videos, opportunities, presentations, and tipsheets focused on clinical faculty, research staff, and community stakeholders. Together, these activities will assist our supported Scholars, Mentors, Investigators, and Partners to develop more effective clinical and translational research programs and increase our overall capacity to address the major health problems that affect our population.
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