Trainee Levels

Novice Investigator

The research novices will be physicians who are in graduate medical training and wish to pursue research careers. These individuals often have had positive early experiences in research but almost no formal training. They will participate in the program over two years, with a minimum of twelve months protected time for research during that time. Trainees will be either Internal Medicine residents undertaking a five to six year specialty research track as defined by the ABIM, fellows in a two or three year specialty track or resident physicians in other specialties who have defined protected time for research. A typical novice is a new Primary Care Fellow, a chief resident or third year Internal Medicine resident embarking on a specialty research career, a second year fellow in a subspecialty of medicine, neurology or pediatrics, or a third or fourth year resident from other departments. The program is designed to accommodate some continued clinical training in order to meet board eligibility requirements for clinical trainees. These individuals would enter an intensive 6 week summer core curriculum followed by pursuit of 18 more credit hours over the next two years. They select one of the three curriculum training tracks, a mentor and mentoring team and begin a research apprenticeship in the first year. They spend 6 weeks in the first year and nine months in the second year in research apprenticeships. They participate in the seminar and retreat activities along with their more experienced transitional colleagues. They will be expected to write a formal career development proposal for external funding during their two-year training.

Transitional Investigator

The transitional investigator group are physicians, other health professionals with PhD’s and select doctorally prepared nonclinicians, who have some research training and experience, and have career development funding in patient oriented research. The typical transitional trainee would be an instructor, early assistant professor or post doctoral trainee from the School of Medicine or other health professions schools who has had formal research training, a focused research theme and has begun to publish. Many of these individuals already have external career development funding. These individuals often find they need to fill specific gaps in knowledge with additional targeted coursework and still need mechanisms to get feedback and learn from others. They will be eligible to take advanced coursework in statistics or methods as needed. They will participate in the seminars and retreats to sharpen their skills by presenting and critiquing their own work and that of their peers.