Mentored Clinical Research
A central element of the Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship Program at the University of Pittsburgh is participation in mentored clinical research.
Mentoring
Fellows may work with faculty who are from the School of Medicine or any of the other five schools of the health sciences (the Graduate School of Public Health, the School of Dental Medicine, the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, the School of Nursing, and the School of Pharmacy) and who conduct clinical research funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or other federally funded institution (e.g., Veterans Administration or Department of Defense). An optimal mentored clinical research experience will be characterized by at least three features:
- The valued input of an experienced and responsive mentor.
- Involvement in an interesting research project that the fellow can own.
- The opportunity to work as part of a multidisciplinary team that provides exposure to all phases of research: conception, design, grant writing, recruitment and consent, data collection and analysis, and dissemination of results.
To maximize the mentor-mentee relationship, all Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellows will participate in a structured, interactive mentoring workshops. Throughout the fellow's research experience, the program co-leader will monitor the relationship to ensure that the learning needs of each fellow are met.
Mentors
Medical students who are enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and are applying for a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship are expected to have identified and worked with their clinical research mentor as part of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scholarly project.
Medical students who are enrolled in other medical schools and are applying for a Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh can use the Web links listed below to identify potential University of Pittsburgh mentors to list on their personal statement addendum. The potential mentor list should include at least two names of federally funded clinical researchers whose work at the University of Pittsburgh is of interest to the applicant. The list is merely informational; it is not binding. Applicants who would like to have help in developing a list may contact the program co-leader at ddcrf@pitt.edu.
Web Resources
Below are some Web resources to help in the search for potential mentors at the University of Pittsburgh.
- To search for faculty by research interest, use the University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences Faculty Research Interests Project.
- To confirm that a faculty member has federal funding, search by name at the Research Portfolio Online Reporting Tool Expenditures and Results (RePORTER).*
- To see a description of the mentored clinical research conducted by current and former medical students, peruse the work done by our fellows.
*The database, maintained by the Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), includes projects funded by the NIH, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health (OASH). Although investigators funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs or the Department of Defense also are eligible to be program mentors, these investigators are not searchable in the database.
