Career Development Program in Substance Use and Addiction Medicine

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Project Summary The primary goal of this K12 Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award in Drug Abuse and Addiction is to develop a multidisciplinary program at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) that will support intensive, mentored training and career development of promising post-doctoral clinician-scientists who aim to establish independent research programs in patient oriented addiction research. Our aim, through this program, is to promote a rich training environment for these scholars by supporting three to five years of mentored research in addiction research laboratories at MGH and affiliated hospitals and institutions and by supporting participation in advanced didactic training opportunities at MGH, Harvard and beyond, that are relevant to their research, so as to provide scholars with the concentrated research mentorship and training necessary as a foundation for productive independent academic careers in addiction medicine, influential positions in government, and leadership positions in industry. A. Eden Evins, M.D., M.P.H., and Nancy Rigotti, M.D., will partner as joint-PIs of the career development program to lead, with the Executive Committee, the search and selection of top clinically trained scholar candidates; to guide choice of and monitor intensive and high-quality research mentorship and complimentary advanced course selection; and to monitor scholars' research and career development progress to independence in patient-oriented addiction research. The joint-PIs are senior faculty in the Departments of Psychiatry (Dr. Evins) and Medicine (Dr. Rigotti), respectively. These two individuals and these two departments have a long history of productive collaboration. Their co-leadership ensures a multi-departmental program that will provide multidisciplinary training to all scholars supported by the K12. Drs. Evins and Rigotti have commitment to and institutional support for protected time to devote to fostering this program of intensive mentoring of junior clinical researchers. Their mentoring plan includes training scholars in 1) clinical aspects of drug addiction; 2) designing and implementing addiction research studies; 3) preparing scientific papers and presentations; 4) writing successful grant applications; and 5) responsible conduct of research. They will accomplish this with a combination of individual and group meetings; collaborative mentoring; role modeling; and integrating mentoring with the MGH Division of Clinical Research and the MGH Office of Faculty Development. The public health importance of this application is related to the need to train the next generation of clinician-investigators to develop the skills required to effectively conduct independent patient-oriented addiction research and to become leaders in the field of addiction medicine.