New pathways to educate future translational researchers in medicine
We have developed a novel summer clinical medical and research internship targeted at undergraduate biomedical engineering majors in their junior year to train and encourage them to pursue careers in translational medical research. The goal of translational research is to accelerate the transfer of findings from the laboratory to clinical application for the detection, diagnosis, treatment, or prevention of diseases leading to the prolongation and enhancement of life. The course is designed to prepare students for careers in translational research by way of MD, PhD, or combined MD/PhD programs. Goals of the program included exposure to clinical medicine and the relevant vocabulary, research experiences that emphasize the creation and application of new scientific knowledge, and entrepreneurial experience and its attendant vocabulary. The ten-week summer course also emphasizes development of skills in leadership, communication, ethics, and team building. The typical day for the internship students begins with ninety minutes of lectures and exercises about ethics, communication skills, entrepreneurship, and leadership. Students attend a full-day human cadaver-based anatomy course for the first two weeks of the course. Lectures, dissection, and special projects comprise this course of instruction in the anatomy, physiology, and pathophysiology of the major organ systems. The students spend four days learning physical examination procedure through lectures and clinical sessions. During the second eight-week period of the internship, students attend morning rotations in internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, surgery, intensive care, and the emergency room. Students are assigned to a clinical mentor, and observe their mentor interacting with patients, performing clinical procedures, analyzing test results, and developing treatment plans. Students keep a weekly journal in which they describe their experiences in the clinical rotations. Afternoons in the latter eight weeks of the internship are spent working on independent research supervised by a faculty mentor. Students write a short proposal at the beginning of this period and present a poster of their project at the end of the summer. Faculty from the University of Texas at Austin, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston, and Rice University have participated in this program. Students from the University of Texas (summers of 2004, 2005) and Rice University (summer of 2005) have participated in the program. The program evaluations showed an increase in student interest in translational research careers. We believe programs of this kind will create an undergraduate experience that is well suited to develop a new generation of translational researchers in medicine and biomedical engineering. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2006.