Curriculum Committee Meeting September 12th, 2006

Members present:  Dr. Rob Averbuch, Dr. Judy Bowers, Dr. Richard Davidson, Dr. Heather Harrell, Dr. Robert Hatch, Tiffany Lacross, Omayra Marrero, Dr. John Meuleman, Dr. Sigurd Normann, Dr. Maureen Novak, Nitesh Paryani, Dr. Lou Ritz, Dr. Robert Watson, Dr. Kyle Rarey, Cynthia Karle, Dr. Lynn Romrell, Linda Butson, Dr. Colin Sumners, Dr. William Winter, Wayne Bottom, Dr. Frank Genuardi, Dr. Cari Hernandez, and Dr. Wayne McCormack

Student announcements:  Nitesh Paryani is the Academic Chair for the first year class.  He stated that their class is immersed in Gross Anatomy and Pathology and they’re off to a great start.  Omarya Marrero stated that the second year class is back for the most part.  She thanked Dr. Normann and Dr. Sumners for their efforts on behalf of their class and stated they are excited about their classes.  Dr. Davidson stated that Bhavin Adhyaru and Doug Arnold are returning as the academic chairs of their classes.  Another addition to the Committee is Tiffany Lacross, who is the Representative of the AAMC Student Section to the Curriculum Committee.

Announcements:  Dr. Davidson stated that Dr. Rarey will be presenting information regarding the LCME visit in February at next month’s meeting.  There will be discussion about how we can get ready for that because it will be a major effort of the Curriculum Committee between now and the new year. 

Dr. Winter stated that the course director’s committee is meeting today at noon.  One of the things he is going to talk about today is how faculty should behave, as well as what the faculty policy should be about providing test review sessions because right now there is a lot of variability. 

Dr. Hatch stated that the clerkship directors are looking forward to meeting with the course directors and meeting with program directors.  Dr. Davidson stated that this is an important step to have the course directors meeting with the clerkship directors and have the clerkship directors meet with the program directors so that we can emphasize a continuum of education of this institution from day one throughout residency.  We are very supportive of these joint meetings.  There have been joint meetings of the clerkship and program directors in the past and we are looking forward to a joint course and clerkship directors meeting. 

Dr. Romrell stated that he has had the opportunity to meet with each one of the class academic chairs and he thinks this school is very lucky to have strong students with strong leadership.  He stated that when we talk about professionalism, he doesn’t think we could have a stronger core of professional leaders among our students with Doug, Bhavin, Omayra and Nitesh.  He thinks they will lead in a way that will demand respect from their class.  

Dr. Harrell stated that the Dean’s Search Committee had its first meeting yesterday morning to get their charge.  They have been going over the job description that is going out; Stewart is the search firm.  They had a lot of teaching about the Florida Sunshine laws and what they can and cannot say and do.    The meetings are open for anyone to come and observe.  The members of the committee were cautioned that any email sent within the university is public record.

Dr. Genuardi gave an update from Jacksonville.  He stated that Dr. Ann Harwood-Nuss stepped down as Assistant Dean for Educational Affairs and has been replaced by Dr. Connie Hahn who is a thoracic surgeon and for the last several years has been involved in outcomes research and quality indicators.  He thinks that will  bring a very interesting perspective to look at mainly residents at this point, but he suspects it would also be applicable to students as well in terms of indicators that  demonstrate the development of superior clinical skills. From a hospital standpoint, there has been a lot of renovation going on.  They are starting to open more patient beds, which they are hoping is going to significantly ease the overcrowding in their emergency department.  The library has just put in a wireless network for internet access and he has also purchased equipment for the student dormitories to go wireless so that the students can access the internet and their email.

Dr. Watson stated that the year long 50^th anniversary celebrations are coming to an end.  Last Friday students commemorated the day that the very first class started medical school here, which was extremely successful.  There are a few events that will still take place to include the retired faculty banquet, planting of the time capsule and the opening of the Cancer/Genetics Institute.  In looking to the future, Dr. Watson has had ongoing conversations with people about the new Medical Education Building.  It was decided there would be an information center in which Dr. Watson would like to have essential pieces of medical education from pre med to the first two years to include the standardized patient center and the simulator center.  He thinks it keeps evolving and that the information center should be at the heart of it all.  As he noted, our ability to keep pace with medical education will require updating our facilities and we look forward to finding support for that effort.

1.  Welcome to new Committee members - Dr. Davidson.

Dr. Mohan Raizada who is from Physiology could not be here today.  He is replacing Dr. Sumners.  Dr. Judy Bowers is OB/GYN faculty from Jacksonville.  Dr. Rob Averbuch is also now officially a member of the Curriculum Committee.  Tiffany Lacross, as mentioned before, is the Student Representative of the AAMC.

2.  Brief review of Educational Principles - Dr. Davidson.

Dr. Davidson made a brief presentation describing the role of the Curriculum Committee.  He stated that one of the reasons it is good that we are going over this now is that the LCME is very interested in the Curriculum Committee and will almost certainly meet with us while they’re here.  It’s important that the members have a sense for how the Curriculum Committee fits in decision making, etc. 

Dr. Davidson stated that we are the faculty decision-making body regarding content, methods, timing and structure of the medical curriculum.  Through the Evaluation Subcommittee, which is chaired by Dr. Rarey, we’ll make qualitative decisions regarding the efficacy of existing coursework.  The Evaluation Subcommittee meets on a regular basis and reviews all of the courses and clerkships in our curriculum and makes an annual report to the Curriculum Committee along with recommendations regarding the existing courses.  The Curriculum Committee makes decisions about curriculum based on various sources of information including the Evaluation Subcommittee.  The Curriculum Committee works with the Associate Dean for Medical Education, which is Dr.  Romrell.  Dr. Romrell’s office implements the decisions that are made by the Curriculum Committee.  Our job is not implementation necessarily, although we are very interested in logistics.  The Curriculum Committee is meant to be independent.  It is composed of a minimum of 11 committed educators without parochial, political or departmental influence.  While they would like to have input from departmental chairs, they are independent of chairs.   The academic chairs from third and fourth year classes are voting members of the committee.  The AAMC representative and the academic chairs from first and second years are ex-officio.  Committee members are expected to prepare and attend the committee meetings; the departments are reimbursed for the time that members spend on this committee.  Members are to participate in task forces or subcommittees at the discretion of the chair.  There are a number of ex-officio members who are normally non-voting members, but they may vote on particular topics at the discretion of the chair.  The detailed explanation of ex-officio members is listed in the presentation, as well as the list of current members.  A broad range of departments is represented, both basic science and clinical members, as well as strong student representation which they feel is extremely important. 

Our curriculum is based on 12 educational principles, which are posted on the Curriculum Committee website.  Learning objectives were developed for each principle.  The way that we evaluate our students and our curriculum is by using competencies which serve as a blueprint for the development for new curricular content. 

Dr. Davidson listed areas of emphasis for the coming year to include the LCME accreditation visit;  the joint MD/MPH dual degree program, and the development of a curriculum in clinical decision-making and clinical problem-solving. Our primary goal  for the next year is to assist Dr. Rarey and his office to successfully prepare for LCME accreditation visit and participate actively in the site visit.  At the end of last year Dr. Davidson appointed two subcommittees, one chaired by Dr. Davidson and one chaired by Dr. Curry, that are in the process of reviewing the developmental clinical skills curriculum beginning at day one and going through the fourth year.  Both of the subcommittees have had one meeting and they hope to come up with final reports from the subcommittees around the first of the year or shortly after.  There are no time constraints on these subcommittees. Their goal is to develop these efforts for a post-LCME curriculum. He thinks that the meetings were very valuable and stated that a lot of good ideas came out of the meetings.  At some point this year he would like Dr. Harrell to give us an update on the organizational structure of the fourth year, which she is now in charge of, that will provide individualized student education as additional learning content.  Dr. Cendan will also present an update on the Harrell Center.

Dr. Novak asked how long they are normally on this committee.  Dr. Davidson stated that ordinarily people stay on this committee for four years.  Dr. Watson stated that they do look very carefully at how effective someone is on the committee and will ask them to step down if needed.

3.  Medical Student Research and the Research Track - Dr. Sumners.

Dr. Sumners gave an update on the Medical Student Research Program in the College of Medicine.  He will be followed by Dr. Wayne McCormack who recently took over as the interim director of the MD/PhD program. 

He stated that they have various things to offer the students to include the summer research between years one and two which is a short-term research experience.  They fund fellowships via training grants, private organizations and now a quite large trust fund.  They have the College of Medicine Research Track, which is an optional program that allows the students to extend their summer research experience to participate in an individualized extended research program which would be at least 26 weeks during their four year MD degree.  They also offer students a research year usually between years two and three and sometimes between years three and four.  It can be internal in the College of Medicine, but can also be external at NIH or another institution.  Dr. Sumners feels that the external research is something very valuable to the student, especially if they are very research oriented.  There is also the MD/PhD program, which Dr. McCormack will discuss. 

Summer research, which really leads into the Research Track, occurs between years one and two and is a short term research experience that can be clinical, basic or epidemiological research.  Students are required to attend a seminar series on Responsible Conduct of Research.  They have students submit a final progress report on their research and they evaluate their program and their mentor; the mentor evaluates them as well.  He stated that 10 weeks is a relatively short time for research so everyone has to be organized going into this and the mentor has to participate in organizing it, but he also emphasizes to the students to really participate, which is why they do the evaluations at the end. 

Dr. Sumners took over in 1999 and from then until 2004 there was an average of 20-25 medical students doing research.  In 2005 there were 39 first year medical students and six prematriculants in part due to having much more money now, which allows them to offer more scholarships.  Prematriculants are people who have been accepted into medical school and do research in the summer before they get here.  He has always had a lot of people who wanted to do this, but there was never a way to fund it.  There is now a way to fund it through the trust fund.  In 2006 there are 66 first year students and 7 prematriculants, which also includes the Peruvians and Ecuadorians.  They sponsored research trips to Peru and Ecuador for students who could go to hospitals there to collect research.  It is moving in an upward direction and he’s excited about it. 

Dr. Ritz asked if more students are coming into medical school with research experience.  Dr. Sumners stated that part of their effort has been to recruit and admit more students who have research experience.  He is on the Medical Admissions Committee and they have been doing that there, as well as through the Junior Honors program. 

Dr. Sumners stated that the research areas include clinical research, clinical trials research, epidemiology/health policy research, as well as basic science research.  He states that his experience has been that more of the students want to work in the clinical areas than they do in the basic science areas. 

The application process includes sending students announcements in December via email with a follow up email in January.  They then go through a mentor/project selection process.  There is a mentor list at the MSRP webpage and they have College of Medicine home pages.  They also have a Ph.D. program website, which is excellent because of the faculty research search engine.  The students then consult with Dr. Sumners and other faculty personally to assure they’ve made the right selection.  He doesn’t meet with every student, but does meet with a large number of them simply because even though some of them know what they want to do, a larger number need advice.  The students are required to write a research proposal to get a fellowship and the deadline is around the beginning of April.  The review it and begin their research in June. 

Last year 102 applications were handed out to interested students and 66 were turned in.  Out of those people, about 5 applications were returned so the students could improve them.  The students have to write a good proposal; they can’t just write three lines and hand them in.  The proposals also have to be signed by their mentor. 

If students really like their research experience, they can extend it in the College of Medicine Research Track.  They normally perform 26 weeks of research between years one and two (10 weeks) and as 16 weeks of research electives.  The electives can be performed in year three; occasionally a student might do by deferring clinical rotations or they do all of it in year four.  Dr. Sumners states that this is very flexible.  Some of the students, even during year three during their clinical rotations, find time to do it and come up with a lot of data.  If they convince him that they’ve been working hard and have sufficient data, then he may allow them to take less time in year four to complete the track.  Students perform an individualized research project and take seminars in the Responsible Conduct of Research and Manuscript and Grant Writing.  A new requirement is that students participate in the Medical Research Interest Group (MRIG).  He stated that the major emphasis to him in this whole program is the research.  They have to do a good piece of research because the bottom line is at the end they have to write an article for publication.

Dr. Sumners stated that they recruit students in two ways:  regular admissions and the Junior Honors program.  He is on the Admissions Committee and what they’ve done for the last couple of years is that interested students include a Research Track statement on their AMCAS application.  The reason for doing this is not that they’re going to give them a research interview; it is to identify medical students that are interested in research so that they pair them with an interviewer who deals with research.  He goes through and screens a lot of the applications and pairs them up with the appropriate interviewer.  They do weekly presentations to interviewees for about 5-10 minutes. 

The other recruiting tool is through the Junior Honors students.  One thing that is required of the Junior Honors students is that they are required to do a research thesis in their junior year.  This is the first year that this was required of everybody and he was very pleased with their efforts.  Out of the 12 students that submitted research thesis, 4-5 have indicated to him that they’d like to continue doing research. 

Students can either enroll during their first year or after their summer research experience.  There were two students who completed the requirements of the track in the Class of 2006.  In the Class of 2007 there were 11 students who signed up for research electives and possibly a twelfth student who fulfilled the requirements since he’s taking some time off to do research as well.  These people are all taking fourth year research electives.  The way they’ve handled this through Dr. Romrell’s office is that Dr. Sumners serves as an advisor for them in terms of what they’re doing in their research.  For classes 2008-2009 there are approximately 50 students, which he has predicted due to feedback from the students who have done research.  He stated a lot of the students don’t make up their mind until they’ve gone through the third year. 

Dr. Sumners stated that he and Chris Hammond created the Medical Research Interest Group (MRIG).  He describes it as glue that will help to stick the Research Track together.  The purpose of this group is to stimulate interest in research and support advancement in the careers of medical students desiring to pursue academic medicine and research.  They are planning to have lunchtime seminars covering various research academic medicine related topics.  There will be opportunities for research shadowing, for example, they will arrange for students to work with someone studying stem cells or spinal injury or deep brain stimulation, etc.  They will go over resources and articles on research career paths, available fellowships, advice and mentoring.  They will set this up so they have three presentations in the fall and three presentations in the spring.  Current topics include the Clinician Scientist Track, the importance of clinicians doing research, careers in the College of Medicine, a panel of faculty to include clinicians, teachers and administrators who will come in and talk about what they do, extramural research which will entail Hugh Walters who is in Surgery coming back and describing his experience at the NIH when he was in the program, medical student research presentations at Medical Student Research Day in which this year a poster session will be held and the winners from that will then present their research, and lastly, manuscript writing/fellowship writing. 

In order for students to complete the College of Medicine Research Track, they have to complete at least 26 weeks of research, prepare a research manuscript that is ready for submission to a scientific journal in which they must be first or co-first author, they must have a detailed letter of support from their research mentor, and the students themselves must submit a one page summary describing their research activities.  The student’s packets are reviewed by the MSRP Committee and those that fulfill the requirements will graduate with honors for outstanding research.  Those that complete the research track will receive recognition at graduation with a COMRT certificate and honors tassels.  Dr. Sumners stated that this last year even though there were only 2-3 students who completed the Research Track, there were an additional 11 students who did fulfill the requirements to graduate with honors in research. 

Dr. Sumners stated that some students decided to take a research year and do it intramurally which was funded via either a PI grant or an external foundation.  He stated that this is something that happens occasionally.  Dr. Sumners stated that what he and Dr. McCormack would like to do is talk about engineering this so that students can get a graduate degree based upon their efforts.  He’s not sure if this can be achieved, but stated that they are allowed to transfer some of their medical student credit towards a master degree (30 credits total for a master) and can transfer 8 of those from medical school.  If they can have a student who takes a year off actually take courses if they want to it may work out.  Extramurally, other students are interested in a cloister program; currently there are two students who really want to do this. 

Dr. Romrell stated there were major changes last year in the fourth year with better oversights.  The person who coordinates the fourth year now oversees all of the students when they are planning their schedule.  The people in Research Track require now that Dr. Sumners review every single schedule to make sure that it is appropriately scheduled and that they are carrying an appropriate load.  Dr. Sumners and Dr. Romrell are working together with all of the fourth year schedules.  He thinks it is a positive step in making sure that fourth year has an appropriate rigor but that it also balanced out.  Dr. Watson also mentioned that the Junior Honors program will be somewhat of an early entry into the research track. 

Dr. Rarey asked how comparable this is to programs at other medical schools.   Dr. Sumners stated that he is not sure how comparable it is, but that most of the programs at other medical schools just go with a straight MD/PhD program.  Other medical schools that do this type of thing tend to do it with a full year off.  What we are trying to do is do it within the four year curriculum.  He thinks we are doing something that is relatively novel.  He thinks that if a student is going to take a year off they may as well try to get something more out of it such as a master’s degree. 

Dr. Davidson asked if this could be integrated with the APPCI program.  Dr. Sumners stated they have discussed this in the past and that it is possible, but he thinks their program is fairly rigid.  Dr. Davidson stated that the APPCI program is a program really geared towards residents and fellows, funded by a K30 NIH grant that provides them a master’s degree in clinical research.  They have a curriculum that they go through and it has always struck him that if they have medical students having access to that same curricular content, they should be eligible to get a master’s for that also.  Dr. Watson stated that one of the longer range goals is that they really want to extend this along the continuum as well because he thinks that a lot of the PhD activity is probably more appropriately done when they’re doing a residency fellowship. 

Dr. Hernandez asked about the prematriculation programs and if there were any plans to expand that, especially with minority students.  She sees a lot of announcements for funding of prematriculation programs for minorities going into research careers in medicine.  Dr. Sumners stated that the expansion with what he does with prematriculation students really depends on the interest of the student and if they have sufficient funds to do that.  He stated that we have to balance it with the fact that students are going into medical school and are going into a heavy full load and some of them want a summer off beforehand rather than doing that.  He stated that they do have the ability to expand that.  Dr. McCormack stated that anyone who is interested in that can talk with Dr. Kendall Campbell.  He stated that they are talking about setting up a post baccalaureate program that would be geared at minority students who are interested in either medical school or graduate school that didn’t get in because of one weakness in their application which would usually be GRE or MCAT.  The students would basically spend a year working on whatever skills they need to boost their portfolio and increase their chance of getting in and with the possibility of maybe getting a master’s degree.  He stated if there is a really promising applicant from the minority applicant pool accepted here or elsewhere, they would go after some of those.  There could be an agreement that if they performed at a certain level there would be a certain number of slots.  They have looked at several programs at other institutions and are trying to pick out what may work best here.   

4.  MD/PhD program and CTSA Award - Dr. Wayne McCormack. 

He states that there are now updated web pages with basic information about the MD/PhD program.  The program right now is the traditional program they have always had.  The students go through the first two years of medical school and then a variable number of years for the PhD program, and then the last two years of medical school.  He states that students have been spending more than four years in the PhD phase; therefore it takes 8 or more years to complete the program.  The future of the program is to link it to the Clinical and Translational Research Training program which is being developed now.  They don’t want the option to do a basic science PhD to go away, but he thinks a lot of medical students will be interested in the clinical and translational aspects of the training program.  He stated that one model for how this might work which was proposed by Dr. Peter Stacpoole in a T32 grant proposal (Graduate Program in Clinical Investigation) that got very good reviews but didn’t get funded, was to have students do the first three years of medical school and then do their PhD and have it be a very structured program as three years in the PhD program.  In their seventh year they would be wrapping up the PhD and doing electives and basically finishing in 7 years.  Some of the other requirements of that proposed program were to require both basic science and clinical science components to the dissertation research, and to require co-mentorship by both basic scientists and clinician scientists.  That is one potential model for how this part of the MD/PhD program may work. 

He stated the curriculum as it stands right now when they are in the PhD phase is that they basically come in as an advanced PhD student, they take 6 credits of advanced coursework which is the equivalent of two one-semester courses, they take Responsible Conduct of Biomedical Research, and attend Journal Club in the fall and spring.  The majors that are available to them are the six basic science majors of our PhD program, the IDP.  They have had one student recently do this PhD work in Biomedical Engineering.

The admissions process is currently done by the Medical Admissions Committee.  On the website it states that applications are reviewed by the MD/PhD Advisory Committee, which Dr. McCormack states has been defunct for years.  He states he is going to try to bring it back to life this year.  He states that in the future it will still be tied to the Medical Admissions Committee, but the plan for this year is that Dr. Sumners, who was the past director of the MD/PhD program, will screen both the applications for the Research Track and the MD/PhD program.  He will then pass the approved applications to Dr. McCormack.  In the future, there will still be a secondary step by an MD/PhD advisory committee of some sort and probably another look by some kind of CTSA committee for consideration of funding by the CTSA.

They would like to facilitate the possibility of medical students entering the MD/PhD program after they have matriculated as medical students.  They would get into medical school and do summer research and get into Research Track and decide if they want to do MD/PhD.  He would like to facilitate that and allow kind of a backdoor into the MD/PhD program.  They can identify themselves as an MD/PhD student up front when they apply to medical school or once they get here. 

With regards to financial support, Dr. Tisher has pledged to support up to three students per year.  The support is in the form of tuition remission for the medical student years only.  During the graduate portion of the training, MD/PhD students are appointed as Graduate Research Assistants and receive tuition remission and a stipend (currently $22,000/year in 2006-07), which may be funded by the mentor's research grant, an NIH training grant, or other institutional funds.  As of January 2007 they could also be eligible for a new health insurance policy for graduate students during PhD training.  All of that would be covered by the mentor and the total cost of that right now is about $29,600 per year.  In the future, there is a T32 component of the CTSA that will include support for some MD/PhD students.  We will be asking the dean for some matching funds so it will be a combination of college support and grant support to support the students.

Dr. McCormack presented Dr. Stacpoole’s slides regarding the CTSA, or Clinical and Translational Science Award.  He stated that the Clinical and Translational Science Award is the NIH’s new model to fund clinical research; GCRC’s are going away. Dr. Stacpoole’s recent success of getting theirs funded was one of the last GCRC’s to be funded in the country.  This is the new model for clinical research and is meant to be an overarching entity at the university campus.  It is meant to promote the development of multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary teams.  Part of that is to develop a new discipline in Clinical and Translational Science, which a lot of universities are having trouble with.  It is meant to be a major administrative entity with shared authority over important things such as space, resources, dollars, protected time and promotions, so this is a really complex endeavor.  Dr. Stacpoole has proposed the creation of a Center of Integrated Health Sciences.  There are many different colleges and centers on campus who are participating in this process.  The first step of this process was to submit a planning grant, which was submitted and funded.  The full CTSA proposal then has to be submitted, which will include training grant components.  Dr. McCormack stated that nearly all of the Health Science Center colleges are participating and there is participation from Shands.  He reiterated that it is an overarching thing to reorganize how clinical research is done in an academic medical center.  It will have to be done in a coordinated way that truly transforms the clinical research program.  

He presented a slide that shows how training really permeates the whole thing.  There is one working group, the Training and Career Development Team, that is charged with developing the T32 component of the overall grant and Dr. Limacher is the chair of that group.  There are members from several other colleges on that committee as well.  The T32 grant is just a part of the overall package that will include support for graduate students and MD/PhD students. 

He stated that what Dr. Sumners said fits nicely with this.  They are talking about continuum training in clinical research and translation research and they are trying to incorporate the APPCI program in this.  The fall course that the GCRC has always offered on the science of clinical research has been retooled and the course is offered this October as a trial run of the new organization as a core course of this training program.  They are thinking of how they will train workers at various levels to include fellows, nurses, graduate students, etc.

Dr. Hernandez asked if there were pilot grants for someone interested in translational research.  Dr. McCormack stated that he didn’t recall any pilot grants, but there was support for research training in labs.  He stated there may be plans for that if it is in the budget. 

Dr. McCormack stated that another potential major avenue for these students is going to be Epidemiology and Health Policy Research.  This and all of the other courses they are developing will be formal courses available to all of their students in the IDP and MD/PhD program.

Wayne Bottom asked if the NIH is encouraging cross-institutional work.  Dr. McCormack said they are encouraging cross-institutional work although they haven’t reached that point in their deliberations.  This replaces the GCRC of the future.  It will have a home base at UF, but there he’s sure there will be opportunities to collaborate in the region. 

Dr. Hatch expressed concern for students attempting to complete the MD/PhD program in 7 years.  Dr. Summers stated that one of the big downfalls of the previous MD/PhD program is the fact that they’ve had somebody taking 6 years to do a PhD and they’re on a 10 year track.  This past year they had two students who did get their PhD in three years.  He stated that if they are reinventing the MD/PhD program, something needs to be done to assure that students don’t go beyond 3-4 years.  Dr. McCormack stated that part of the answer is that the students will need better mentorship and better oversight of what they’re doing.  Their clinical skills won’t deteriorate if they are really involved in patient-oriented research.  They will hopefully have clinical contact during their PhD training and they wouldn’t have to be retrained as they sometimes are now. 

Dr. Sumners asked if they have considered doing all four years and then doing the PhD afterwards.  Dr. McCormack stated that they haven’t discussed that yet, but emphasized that everything is still on the table. 

Dr. Sumners stated that there is one MD/PhD student now in the first year class, as well as a student in the second year class who is going to get an MD/PhD through the Research Track. 

Dr. Romrell stated that the key to graduating on time is a firm agreement with the person who will be the dissertation advisor. He stated that there have been students that have taken 7 years to get their MD/PhD and often its with strong influence from the person directing the research telling the student they can get 2-3 more publications if they spend another year or two.  He stated that is very inappropriate.

Dr. Sumners mentioned an extreme case of a student that recently graduated from the PhD program that started the program in 1991.   

Dr. Romrell stated that he, Dr. Watson and Dr. Dolan met with the provost and got a tuition waiver for nonresident students.  They can now offer this to outstanding students for different programs, but especially PhD or Research Track students, and will be competitive with other schools.  He stated this is a huge step in the right direction in recruiting outstanding research-bound students. 

Dr. Winter asked about a fellowship MD/PhD program.  Dr. Sumners stated that the key with any MD/PhD program is that it doesn’t extend out forever.  He states that a PhD is a training process that trains someone to do research.  It’s not a process where you go on and on to get a certain number of papers in. 

Dr. Davidson stated that in the past one of the concerns about MD/PhD programs in general is that relatively few of the graduates actually went on to utilize their training.  His assumption is that the CTSA and the emphasis on more clinical based research is an attempt to keep the interest of physicians and keep them involved.  Dr. Sumners said that is one of the NIH’s goals. 

Dr. Winter asked how the numbers compare if you look at the percentage of people that have MD/PhD degrees that are active researchers vs. the number of people that have fellowships that are active researchers.  Dr. Sumners is not certain of the numbers, but he knows there are a good number of people out there who have just the MD degree and are absolutely superb researchers.  Dr. Winter stated that sometimes MD’s have to compete for NIH funds with PhD’s who have spent their whole lives getting excellent at research.  Dr. Sumners stated that there are a number of grant programs out there which really cater to those MD’s and allow them to develop research. 

Dr. Romrell stated that in the 1980’s and 1990’s data showed that MD/PhD’s had a very high success rate in getting NIH funding.  Then in the 1990’s people who were MD’s and were applying for the grants were just as successful as MD/PhD’s and that it really depends on the chair of the department and how much time they allow people to devote to research.   

Dr. Davidson thanked Dr. McCormack and Dr. Sumners and stated it has been really rewarding to watch the Research Track grow because it was one of the first things they passed when he became chair of the Curriculum Committee and it is a huge success and something we should all be proud of. 

The meeting was adjourned at 8:55.