MULTIDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH IN DEVELOPMENTAL CARDIOLOGY

尽管在过去的50年里，先天性心脏病的诊断和治疗取得了令人满意的进步，但“最先进的技术”仍然远远不是完美的。正如“儿童和青年问题工作队的报告”(Moller等人，发行量88：2479-2486,1993)所概述的那样，美国有60多万儿童患有某种形式的先天性心脏畸形。每年的成本，包括直接医疗费用和对国民生产总值的贡献损失，超过80亿美元。考虑到这些问题，我们提出了一个全面的计划，以培训进入21世纪的儿科心脏病学。本建议中描述的培训计划协同结合了儿科心脏病学部(及其最近发起的心血管疾病遗传学南卡罗来纳州计划)、心血管发育生物学中心和南卡罗来纳医科大学的Gazes心脏研究所的实验室资源。我们的目标是每年招收两名经过临床培训的研究员，在这些研究单位的导师的指导下，至少连续两年进行研究培训。作为研究人员向独立性过渡的职业规划元素是我们提案中的另一个重要元素。将在全国范围内积极招聘这一机会的学员。然而，在美国，每年只有70名受训人员参加儿科临床心脏病学培训计划；预计未来几年，受训人数将降至这一数字以下。我们认为，面向儿科心脏病学的研究人员需要比儿科心脏病学实习生可能提供的人力更多的人力。我们通过将我们的计划扩大到包括博士后实习生来解决这个问题。我们预计每两年招收一名博士后实习生，目标是启动与儿科心脏病学研究需求互补的研究职业。我们将在全国范围内招募博士后实习生参加一个独特的项目，除了实验室研究活动外，该项目还提供正规的多学科接触普通临床语言和儿科心脏病学的关注。通过这一项目，博士后实习生将被介绍给对青少年心血管疾病问题至关重要的研究问题，并提供互动机会，将他们的进展传达给儿科心脏病专家，最终造福于先天性心脏病儿童。

Despite gratifying improvements in the diagnosis and treatments of congenital heart disease during the past fifty years, the 'state of the art' remains far from perfect. As summarized in the "Report of the Task Force on Children and Youth" (Moller et al., circulation 88:2479- 2486,1993), more than 600,000 children in the United States have some form of cardiac abnormality of congenital origin. The annual cost, in direct medical care expenses and lost contribution to the gross national product, is over $8 billion. With these concerns in mind we present a comprehensive program to train pediatric cardiology into the twenty- first century. The training program described in this proposal synergistically combines the laboratory resources of the Division of Pediatric Cardiology (and its recently initiated South Carolina Program in the Genetics of Cardiovascular Disease), the Cardiovascular Developmental Biology Center, and the Gazes Cardiac Research Institute at the Medical University of South Carolina. It is our goal to enroll two clinically trained fellows per year for a minimum of two continuous years of research training under mentors from these research units. A career planning element for transition to independence as researchers is an additional important element of our proposal. Recruitment of trainees for this opportunity will be aggressively pursued nationwide. However, only seventy trainees per year enter into clinical pediatric cardiology training programs in the USA; the number of trainees in the next few years is expected to drop below this number. We feel that the pool of pediatric cardiology-oriented researchers requires more manpower than the pool of pediatric cardiology trainees is likely to provide. We address this issue by expanding our program to include PhD postdoctoral trainees. We anticipate the enrollment of one PhD postdoctoral trainee every two years with the goal of initiating investigative careers complementary to the research needs of pediatric cardiology. We will recruit nationally for PhD postdoctoral trainees to enter a unique program providing formal multi-disciplinary exposure to the general clinical language and concerns of pediatric cardiology in addition to laboratory research activities. Through this program PhD postdoctoral trainees will be introduced to research questions central to the problems of cardiovascular disease in the young as well as provided the opportunities for interaction to communicate their advances to pediatric cardiologists for the ultimate benefit of children with congenital heart disease.