Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Mar 27;19(1):89.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-019-1523-0.

A physician-scientist preceptorship in clinical and translational research enhances training and mentorship

Jonathan A Stefely  1 , Erin Theisen  1 , Chelsea Hanewall  1 , Linda Scholl  2 , Mark E Burkard  1   3 , Anna Huttenlocher  1   4 , John-Paul J Yu  5   6
Affiliations

A physician-scientist preceptorship in clinical and translational research enhances training and mentorship

Jonathan A Stefely et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: Dual degree program MD/PhD candidates typically train extensively in basic science research and in clinical medicine, but often receive little formal experience or mentorship in clinical and translational research.

Methods: To address this educational and curricular gap, the University of Wisconsin Medical Scientist Training Program partnered with the University of Wisconsin Institute for Clinical and Translational Research to create a new physician-scientist preceptorship in clinical and translational research. This six-week apprentice-style learning experience-guided by a physician-scientist faculty mentor-integrates both clinical work and a translational research project, providing early exposure and hands-on experience with clinically oriented research and the integrated career of a physician-scientist. Five years following implementation, we retrospectively surveyed students and faculty members to determine the outcomes of this preceptorship.

Results: Over five years, 38 students and 36 faculty members participated in the physician-scientist preceptorship. Based on student self-assessments (n = 29, response rate 76%), the course enhanced competency in conducting translational research and understanding regulation of clinical research among other skills. Mentor assessments (n = 17, response rate 47%) supported the value of the preceptorship in these same areas. Based on work during the preceptorship, half of the students produced a peer-reviewed publication or a meeting abstract. At least eleven peer-reviewed manuscripts were generated. The preceptorship also provided a structure for physician-scientist mentorship in the students' clinical specialty of choice.

Conclusion: The physician-scientist preceptorship provides a new curricular model to address the gap of clinical research training and provides for mentorship of physician-scientists during medical school. Future work will assess the long-term impact of this course on physician-scientist career trajectories.

Keywords: Apprenticeship; Clinical research; Curriculum; Education; Mentorship; Physician-scientist; Preceptorship; Translational research.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

As determined by consultation with the University of Wisconsin–Madison Institutional Review Board (IRB) and via a certification tool prior to conducting the survey, the survey was found to be exempt from a full review by the IRB due to the program evaluation and quality improvement nature of this project.

Consent for publication

As part of a quality improvement project for this course, we did not ask for informed consent for publication from survey participants. However, the identity of survey respondents was maintained as anonymous via a neutral broker. Additionally, the survey as a whole and individual questions were optional for participants.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests. M.E.B. declares the following: Medical advisory board of Strata Oncology; Research funding from Abbvie, Genetech, Puma, and Loxo Oncology.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Student self-assessment of competency levels before and after taking the preceptorship. Center lines (bold) indicate medians, limits indicate 25th and 75th percentiles, whiskers extend 1.5 times the interquartile range, outliers are represented by dots, and P values were determined with a Mann-Whitney test (two-sided) (n = 29 respondents for both groups)
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Assessment by faculty mentors that participated in the preceptorship of the value various aspects of the preceptorship (n = 17 respondents)
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Assessment of students that participated in the preceptorship of value of the listed categories (n = 29 respondents)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Hirschtritt ME, Heaton PM, Insel TR. Preparing physician-scientists for an evolving research ecosystem. JAMA. 2018;320:31. doi: 10.1001/jama.2018.4478. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Collins FS, Gottlieb S. The next phase of human gene-therapy oversight. N Engl J Med. 2018;379:1393–1395. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1810628. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Char DS, Shah NH, Magnus D. Implementing machine learning in health care — addressing ethical challenges. N Engl J Med. 2018;378:981–983. doi: 10.1056/NEJMp1714229. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bodenheimer T, Chen E, Bennett HD. Confronting the growing burden of chronic disease: can the U.S. health care workforce do the job? Health Aff. 2009;28:64–74. doi: 10.1377/hlthaff.28.1.64. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Vafai SB, Mootha VK. Mitochondrial disorders as windows into an ancient organelle. Nature. 2012;491:374–383. doi: 10.1038/nature11707. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources