MED820B

042025

The Scholarly Project (SP) is a required 4-year longitudinal course designed to stimulate critical thinking, enhance intellectual acuity and inquisitiveness, and to foster excellence in the development of clinician educators, clinician scientists and physician investigators. The SP allows medical students to conduct research with a faculty mentor on a topic of interest in the fields of health and health care. Students are enrolled in MED 820B during the second semester of their Scholarly Project. Successful completion of MED820A is required before students can enroll in and participate in MED 820B.

The overarching goal of the course is to provide all medical students with the necessary educational and practical tools to pursue a highly successful and productive career in clinical or academic medicine. Related goals are as follows:

1. Through completing a hypothesis-driven project, students will generate new knowledge using scholarly approaches.
2. Through participation in learning sessions, students will gain a foundation in scientific method, critical thinking, and the responsible conduct of research.
3. The SP will help students refine and differentiate their own career and specialty orientation prior to application for residency.

To achieve these goals, the Scholarly Project Program has three components:

1. A didactic component consisting of lectures, small group sessions and completion of training through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI).
2. Assistance in developing skills necessary to formulate and describe a research question, an associated hypothesis, and the methodology to conduct the research.
3. A student Scholarly Project (SP).

The didactic component of the SP will provide all students with an understanding of basic research principles, including but not limited to the responsible conduct of research. These sessions are also part of Pathways to Health in Medicine, the Evidence-Based Medicine thread, with some sessions that are standalone for the SP.

Students will have access to library resources, to learning experts who can help formulate questions and provide guidance on preparation of abstracts, oral presentations, posters and other media used to deliver scientific content.

Conducting and completing the SP will provide all students, regardless of their ultimate career path, an enhanced appreciation and understanding of the linkage between research scholarship and health and health care.

CLK - Clerkship H,HP,P,F

Medicine

MED 820A recommended.