Cancer Research Career Enhancement

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Project Summary/Abstract: Career Enhancement Norris Cotton Cancer Center (NCCC) is a central provider and resource of Career Enhancement activities for its trainees, Program Members, at both Dartmouth and Dartmouth-Hitchcock Health system (D-H), and beyond. Importantly, the NCCC Career Enhancement programs link Dartmouth, and the Geisel School of Medicine, with D-H in the joint endeavor to train the next generation of cancer-focused physicians and scientists and to improve health locally and globally. In the last five years, our new initiatives have been responsive to emerging themes, needs and opportunities, and we have increased our funding base in key areas to implement these initiatives. These new programs span the breadth of stages of career development and include: 1. Successful founding of the NCI-funded Dartmouth Opportunities for Oncology Research (DOOR) Training Program for undergraduates from underrepresented minority (URM) or disadvantaged backgrounds; 2. Implementation of the Training Program in Surgical Innovation and the Quantitative Biomedical Sciences Graduate Program, both of which are recently NIH T32-funded and led by NCCC Members; 3. The establishment of two new medical residency programs in Radiation Physics and Radiation Oncology; 4. Synergistic interaction with the NIH-funded CTSA and COBRE Programs at Dartmouth to provide mentoring and grant writing support, which has directly contributed to the doubling of NIH Career Development awards (K and R00) as well as new Komen, American Cancer Society and NIH MIRA awards, to junior NCCC Members during this reporting period; 5. The expansion of training and trainee participation in Global Oncology, facilitated by active partnerships with institutions in Honduras and Rwanda; 6. NCCC has collaborated with Dartmouth, Geisel, and D-H to hire 21 cancer and oncology-focused faculty within 11 different departments during the current reporting period. Future activities and goals to facilitate Career Enhancement at NCCC have been prioritized and many are already underway. Burgeoning initiatives are described within this application and include: integration of a new Medical Masters in Science Program; the new Radiation Physics residency program underway (2018) and the Radiation Oncology residency program that will begin next summer (2019); The Translational Oncology Program Scholars (TOPS) program begins the summer of 2019, and will provide Geisel medical students a mentored research experience and exposure to clinical translational medicine in order to give an insider’s view of a career as a translational physician-scientist; and the 2019 launch of the D-H Cancer Faculty Fellows Program in which six to nine faculty members from the clinical departments will be provided with 40% protected academic time for 4-year terms to pursue cancer-focused research.