Trainee Activities
Clinical Activities: Trainees who are Hematology/Oncology fellows in the Departments of Medicine or Pediatrics will continue to conduct a half-day weekly longitudinal clinic, as required for board certification. This program is not designed to train clinicians to perform clinical duties; however, where appropriate to their area of research, trainees will be encouraged to relate their work to clinical problems, within the time limitation stipulated above, through attendance at clinics or clinical conferences judged by the trainee’s preceptor and the Scholarship Oversight Committee as appropriate. PhD trainees will be encouraged to shadow preceptor faculty in clinically-related areas of their research. Please see section on Facilities and Other Resources for a list of T32-specific clinical resources available to trainees. Students on short-term training slots will be encouraged to participate in clinical activities as related to their mentor’s research or clinical area of interest.
Research Activities and Choice of Research Subject: The training program is designed individually to give each trainee a substantive foundation in basic or clinical research, taking into consideration the level of prior research training. Research training occurs in a carefully supervised apprentice/tutorial system, in which a trainee works on a project of her/his own within the laboratory or clinical area of the preceptor, combined with a didactic components, including research seminars and graduate studies, designed to expand each trainee’s knowledge of the field. Examples of individualized training are provided in Section Bc.5 Examples of Programs for Individual Postdoctoral Trainees. As noted above, predoctoral students will select short-term research projects, provided by preceptors, with a focus in benign hematology.
T32 Research Meetings: T32 Trainees will present at monthly T32 Research in Progress meetings attended by all T32 Scholars, the Executive Committee and the featured T32 speaker’s Scholarship Oversight Committee. After the research-in-progress session, the mentor, trainee and the trainee’s Scholarship Oversight Committee will remain to discuss career development activities and provide feedback. Feedback on effective/ineffective sessions will be recorded through annual reviews and adjusted based on trainee feedback.
Conferences and seminars: Conferences with specialized content are described under Section Bb.2 Program Tracks, Affiliated Faculty Members & Training Resources. All trainees are required to attend the Responsible Conduct of Research Training (see Section 3: Plan for Instruction in the Responsible Conduct of Research). Student in the short-term training slots are expected to attend conferences relevant to their Track assignment and will attend the “Strategies for T32 success” Introductory lecture that will cover topics of scientific integrity.
Career development activities: As outlined above the “T32 Strategy” seminars will cover topics relevant to T32 trainees on a monthly basis. These topics will be supplemented through career development seminars offered through the Office of Physician Scientist Development. Students on the short-term training slots will be encouraged to attend career development activities that are relevant to their stage of training.
Annual Research Retreat:. The Divisions of Hematology, Oncology and Hematological Malignancies and Cellular Therapy hold an annual research retreat each January. All clinical fellows, T32-funded trainees, divisional faculty, and preceptors from other departments attend this 1-day retreat. In addition, this retreat gives our External Advisors the opportunity to hear all research trainees present their work and to meet with the trainees. During this retreat, each of the ~18 research trainees in the fellowship programs, including PhD and MD trainees funded and not funded by this T32, presents her/his own work orally in a typical national meeting format (10-15 min for presentation, 5 min for questions). This retreat also promotes interaction and collaboration among faculty and trainee researchers, as they hear about and discuss the activities of other program members. Medical students will not participate in this activity as the retreat occurs in January.
Coursework: The graduate programs of Duke University provide an outstanding opportunity for trainees to increase their core knowledge. In addition to the required lecture series described above, all trainees will be encouraged to pursue graduate coursework within their appropriate research tracks (See Bb.2 Program Tracks, Affiliated Faculty Members & Training Resources). Those pursuing translational or clinical research will be required to take a course in statistics offered by the Clinical Research Training Program or the Department of Medicine; trainees doing clinical research are strongly encouraged to pursue a masters degree in clinical research. For trainees pursuing basic research, the Office of Physician Scientist will be offering a Master of Health Sciences Basic Science Research Track (BSRT) which provides a didactic curriculum for those interested in laboratory-based research using web-based modules and “flipped classroom” approach to teaching. When courses are taken for credit, the tuition is paid from the resources of the grant. Given the abbreviated period of training for medical students, they will not be required to pursue additional coursework.
Attendance at National Scientific meetings: Each trainee participates in at least one extramural scientific meeting annually. Each second-year trainee is encouraged to submit research work for presentation at a national meeting. Trainees are also encouraged to apply for relevant instructional programs conducted by other agencies, such as the ASH Clinical Research Training Institute or the European Hematology Association (EHA)-ASH Translational Research Training in Hematology Award. When appropriate, medical students will be encouraged to submit their research to national meetings. Because of the high caliber of educational content at national hematology meetings, (e.g., American Society of Hematology and Hemostasis Thrombosis Research Society), trainees will be strongly encouraged to attend a national meeting.
Scholarly Output: As shown in the progress report that follows, the T32 training program has been extremely successful in promoting scholarly output, with ~84% of our trainees leaving the program with a first-authored publication. We will continue to place an emphasis on writing strategies through the training program. Medical students will be asked to provide a 1-2 page research report summarizing their research project providing background, preliminary data, results and a brief discussion of their work.
