Medical Scientist Training Program of Oregon Health & Science University

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The MD/PhD Training Program at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) offers integrated medical and scientific training. Graduate programs include six basic science departments' programs, Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Biomedical Engineering, and Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology. To tailor the graduate curriculum appropriately for our individual students, a Scientific Oversight Committee of three faculty is assigned to each student. We also include required courses specific to the MD/PhD program, including a required 8 week Clinical/Translational Research Experience (housed in our CTSA funded Oregon Clinical and Translational Research Institute), a 12-week MD/PhD Professional Development Course and a required Longitudinal Clinical Rotation, providing a formalized, mentored ongoing clinical experience two half days a month during the PhD years. In conjunction with our Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology, we offer an intensive one-day course in informatics, R-programming, accessing public databases, managing informatics teams, and other skills specifically aimed at physician scientists. Our monthly MD/PhD Grand Rounds, presented by physician scientists on our faculty and taking the form of a case-based introduction to a scientific talk, assures ongoing exposure to clinical and translational research, and the guidelines for our weekly MD/PhD Journal Club require that the article be placed firmly in a clinical context in the background presented. Our annual MD/PhD Research Retreat also features talks by OHSU scientists, many of whom have translational research projects, as well a keynote speaker of international reputation, selected for the clinical relevance as well as quality of his or her research. We foster public speaking skills, providing multiple opportunities for student presentations, with formal feedback from the Program Director. We also emphasize grant writing skills, providing multiple sources of assistance in crafting and submitting individual NRSA and similar grants from professional societies, with a very high rate of success in achieving funding. A strong emphasis on Scientific Rigor and Reproducibility runs through all aspects of our program, with particular emphasis in the Journal Club, a session in our Professional Development Course on Data Management best practices, Qualifying Exam format, and a 5-week course on rigor and reproducibility. Extensive student tracking and mentorship programs are in place, including the OHSU Mentoring Academy to provide formal training in this vitally important skillset. We have also appointed an Associate Director for Program Assessment with great expertise in this area, and have developed a Logic Model as a framework for rigorous assessment. With the strong support of the Dean of the School of Medicine, our CTSA, and the Departments and Faculty as a whole, we provide an ideal environment for training the next generation of physician scientists.