Intensive Summer Research Training in Emergency Medicine (ISTEM) program

The Intensive Summer Research Training in Emergency Medicine (ISTEM) program had been instrumental in expanding the number of medical students exposed to clinical research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-CH). The goal of the program is to engage rising second-year UNC-CH medical students in research on topics related to emergency medicine and heart, lung, and blood with the intent of recruiting physicians into a lifelong research career. This application is for a renewal to continue the ISTEM program that was funded in 2017. We filled 28 of our 30 positions (~6 per year) and all trainees completed the program. Twenty-one of the trainees presented posters at the UNC-CH John B. Graham Student Research Day, 4 presented posters at American Heart Association national meetings, and 6 have published in peer reviewed journals. These numbers speak to the success of the ISTEM program in its first 5 years. We are requesting from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) to continue ISTEM with 8 short-term trainee slots per year. The aims of the program are the following: Aim 1. To match selected ISTEM trainees to outstanding, NIH-funded research mentors who will provide a productive and rigorous environment for conducting a summer research project in an area of importance to NHLBI; Aim 2. To provide ISTEM trainees with a formative educational experience in the goals, methods, and challenges of research in emergency medicine settings, including topics on research ethics and reproducibility; and Aim 3. To track the outcomes of ISTEM trainees to determine the success of the program and to improve and expand this training opportunity. The training program will extend over 8-12 weeks during the summer. Trainees will be mentored by well-published and funded physicians and scientists with expertise in emergent conditions, cardiovascular and pulmonary health, blood and bleeding disorders, health services, and epidemiology. The ISTEM program administrative team will consist of two program co-directors, an administrator, and an advisory committee. Key activities in the training sequence include the identification of top medical students through a competitive application and review process, weekly didactic seminars in research and manuscript writing, completion of a research project with a mentor, abstract development and presentation, and program evaluation. New to this renewal application, we will evaluate ISTEM’s ability to increase research competencies using the Research Self-Efficacy Scale to assess the trainees’ confidence in research tasks before and after the program. Trainee outcomes consist of increased understanding and practice of research design and implementation, increased experience with mentor-mentee relationships, completed presentations and publications, and increased trainee self-awareness related to their future research goals and interests. We are confident that ISTEM will provide a strong foundation for our trainees to build towards academic careers that will advance NHLBI research.