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可喜的进步，但“最先进的技术”仍然远远不够完美。正如“儿童和青年问题工作组报告”（Moller等人，Circulation 88：2479- 2486，1993），在美国有超过600，000名儿童患有某种形式的先天性心脏异常。每年的直接医疗费用和对国民生产总值的损失超过80亿美元。考虑到这些问题，我们提出了一个全面的计划，以培养儿科心脏病学进入二十一世纪。本提案中描述的培训计划协同结合了儿科心脏病学分部（及其最近启动的南卡罗来纳州心血管疾病遗传学计划）、心血管发育生物学中心和南卡罗来纳州医科大学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指导下进行至少连续两年的研究培训。作为研究人员向独立过渡的职业规划要素是我们提案的另一个重要内容。将在全国范围内积极征聘这一机会的受训人员。然而，在美国，每年只有70名受训者进入临床儿科心脏病学培训项目;预计未来几年的受训者人数将低于这一数字。我们认为，面向儿科心脏病学的研究人员需要的人力比儿科心脏病学实习生可能提供的人力更多。我们通过扩大我们的计划，包括博士博士后学员解决这个问题。我们预计每两年招收一名博士博士后实习生，目标是启动补充儿科心脏病学研究需求的调查职业。我们将在全国范围内招募博士博士后学员进入一个独特的计划，除了实验室研究活动外，还提供正式的多学科接触一般临床语言和儿科心脏病学的关注。通过该计划，博士博士后学员将被引入到年轻人心血管疾病问题的核心研究问题中，并提供互动机会，将他们的进步传达给儿科心脏病专家，以最终造福先天性心脏病儿童。

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.