Tri-I Stimulating Access to Research in Residency program (Tri-I StARR - NIAID)

Abstract: Despite the irreplaceable contributions of physician-scientists to clinical, the pipeline of clinician-scientist trainees remains on the decline. A critical barrier to the physician-scientist career is the lack of protected time and access to research mentorship available to physicians during clinical training. With the heightened acuity, volume and complexities of modern medicine, clinical training has increasingly focused on the acquisition and application of existing, rather than generation of new, knowledge. An unfortunate consequence of this shift in focus is the increasing compartmentalization of scientific training into fragments of time that are inadequate to provide the training and continuity needed to become proficient in the scientific investigation. The Tri-Institutional Stimulating Access to Research during Residency (Tri-I StARR) program seeks to remedy this deficiency by developing an integrated, longitudinal mentored research training program that will lead to the development, implementation, and evaluation of new clinical interventions to prevent, diagnose, treat and ameliorate health disparities of disorders of infectious, immunologic and inflammatory etiologies, with mentorship from across Weill Cornell Medicine, Rockefeller University, and Memorial Sloan Kettering. Tri-I-StARR will train residents on an integrated clinical-research pathway across 3 departments: Pediatrics, Medicine, and Pathology in areas along the full biomedical research continuum and include the themes of healthcare disparities and health and disease over the life course. The program proposes four training aims: (1) Acquisition of skills in the scientific method and design of hypothesis-based projects to address human diseases across the lifespan and their inequities, (2) Individualized, multidisciplinary mentorship in the design and completion of a research project, (3) Development of short, intermediate, and long term IDPs that integrate scientific and clinical training within and across career stages, and (4) Active engagement in horizontal and vertical networking among physician-scientists within and across career stages and institutions. The Tri-I-StARR will be led by an Executive Committee (EC) consisting of Kyu Rhee, MD PhD (Medicine), Sallie Permar, MD, PhD (Pediatrics), and Ethel Cesarman, MD (Pathology), an Expanded Executive Committee (EEC) of Residency Program Directors and Program Coordinators, and a team of 36 multi-departmental, multi-disciplinary, well-funded, and experienced faculty preceptors. Three Resident-Investigators each year will be supported for 12 months of research with the options to add an additional 12 months. Upon completion, trainees will be capable of transitioning to research-intense fellowship training, successfully competing for follow-on funding opportunities, including the K38, that will enable them to become the next generation of physicians leading and mentoring trainees in clinically-oriented research. This program will fulfill the urgent need for: 1) more full-time academic physician-researchers in medical schools throughout the country, and 2) innovations and clinical translation of novel strategies to improve health across the lifespan.