Professor of Medicine (General Medicine); Associate Dean for Student Research, Office of Education; Co-Director, National Clinician Scholars Program
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Professor of Medicine (General Medicine); Associate Dean for Student Research, Office of Education; Co-Director, National Clinician Scholars Program
John Slade Ely Professor of Medicine (Pulmonary) and Professor of Pathology; Director, Yale Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD) Center of Excellence, Pulmonary, Critical Care & Sleep Medicine; Associate Dean, Medical Student Research
This portion of the first-year curriculum is one of several coordinated and complementary curricular offerings designed to prepare Yale School of Medicine (YSM) students for careers in the rigorous consideration, execution, and application of research which results in the betterment of human health and wellbeing.
The YSM research requirement ensures that students learn and master research skills, such identifying knowledge gaps, formulating research questions, designing rigorous and reproducible investigative approaches using the highest standards of methodological rigor, analyzing data, summarizing results, and presenting one’s work to communities of interest including patients. An important feature of the research curriculum is the formal instruction students receive in the first year which is designed to successfully launch them on the path of acquiring and practicing these essential skills on their own.
The goal of the Scientific Inquiry curriculum is to initiate students on their four- to five-year journey of learning, observing, and practicing the skills required to conduct research related to health and medicine. Specifically, first-year students will receive instruction regarding the YSM thesis requirement as well as the preparation and support needed to develop methodologically rigorous research projects. Although the course is framed around the mentored research that many students will conduct during the summer between the first and second years of medical school, the same principles taught in the course will also apply to research conducted during the Advanced Training Period, in support of the MD thesis requirement, and beyond.
The curriculum is led by physician-scientists and clinician-investigators with successful research programs who also serve as role models and mentors to students as they begin to assume their professional identities. The first year involves seven sessions dedicated to the formal support of research project development, mentor selection, identification of knowledge gaps via literature review, and the creation of a written research proposal. It is expected that students will develop impactful research projects that are methodologically rigorous, significant, and innovative. The curriculum culminates in the required submission of a research proposal, completion of which serves as the course assessment. The proposal must contain the following components: background/scientific premise; the research question(s) being asked with hypotheses being tested (not relevant for qualitative research or history of medicine research); specific aims; methods, including a proposed statistical analysis plan; challenges and limitations; statement of scientific impact and relevance for communities of interest including patients. All MD students are required to submit a completed research proposal in order to successfully receive credit for this course.
The curriculum employs a variety of learning approaches, including large group didactics, small group discussion, the use of an “inverted classroom,” independent study and self-directed learning, as well as peer-to-peer, near-peer, and experiential learning. Prior to the first formal workgroup session (11/10/2022), first-year students will be assigned to a peer workgroup with a faculty facilitator. Much of the learning involved in the research support sessions will be done within these workgroups, which have been structured to attain the course objectives.