Using an Extracurricular Honors Program to Engage Future Physicians Into Scientific Research in Early Stages of Medical Training

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Abstract

Physician-scientists are urgently needed to make progress in the dynamic world of medical healthcare. Currently, there is a worldwide shortage in physicians pursuing a scientific career. Actively engaging students in research in early stages of medical training could help to direct students towards a scientific career and contribute to creating the next generation of physician-scientists. Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) implemented an extracurricular Honors program with a fundamental orientation towards research. The program starts in the second year of medical training and is comprised of four different tracks in order to attract multiple types of students with different interests. All four tracks offer students scholarly experiences, but differ in content and amount of provided structure. The LUMC Honors program has a clear goal to develop future physician-scientists, and combined with its unique multiple-track model, the program accommodates about 70 students (25%) each year. The number of students in the program has grown and students’ experiences are positive.

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A review of literature on medical students and scholarly research: experiences, attitudes, and outcomes.

Youjin Chang, Christopher Ramnanan (2015)

The aim of medical student research programs is to develop interest in and competencies related to scholarly research within future physicians. Although schools invest in these programs, there is currently no consensus regarding what benefits they confer. The goal of this review is to characterize students' perceptions of research programs during medical school as well as the outcomes attributed to these programs to provide recommendations for their optimization.

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Impact of medical student research in the development of physician-scientists.

BENJAMIN POWERS, James Pichert, Sunil Solomon … (2003)

A decline in the number of physician-scientists has been identified in the United States for at least two decades. Although many mechanisms have been proposed to reverse this trend, most of these have concentrated on MD/PhD programs, research in sub-specialty fellowships, and other approaches later in physician training. Few have emphasized early medical student research experiences as a contributing solution. To determine the effect of a medical student research experience on career choices and attitudes about biomedical research. We jointly report 25 years of experience with National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored Medical Student Research Fellowship programs (MSRFs) at two colleges of medicine, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Vanderbilt University. In both programs, students work during the summer of their first or second year of medical school on a research project that is mentored by an established scientist and participate in a structured program (lectures, visiting professor). We gathered data using pre- and postresearch fellowship questionnaires to assess (a) quality of research experiences; (b) tabulation of productivity, that is, presentations, abstracts, publications, and awards; (c) long-term tracking of former program participants; (d) comparison of residency placements by medical student researchers; and (e) comments from former program participants on the effects of their students' research experiences on career choices. During this time, approximately 1,000 medical students participated in the two programs. Follow-up data (for short-term evaluations, 96-132 respondents with a response rate > 82%; for long-term evaluations, 88-118 respondents with a response rate > 29-33%) strongly suggest (a) interest in an academic career increased, (b) one-third to half of former student respondents considered themselves to be in academic medicine, (c) the vast majority of students conducted additional research after their medical student research experience, and (d) a large number of students were currently doing research or had published or presented their work at scientific meetings. Over two decades of experience with NIH-sponsored medical student research programs at two medical schools strongly support the ability of these programs to interest medical students in research and academic careers. MSRFs should be included in strategies to reverse the decline in the number of physician-scientists.

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Extracurricular research experience of medical students and their scientific output after graduation.

Thomas Kropmans, Janke Cohen-Schotanus, Marlies Reinders (2005)

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Author and article information

Contributors

Belinda W. C. Ommering: +31 (0)71 52 98820 , b.w.c.ommering@lumc.nl

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Med Sci Educ

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Med Sci Educ

Title: Medical Science Educator

Publisher: Springer US (New York )

ISSN (Electronic): 2156-8650

Publication date (Electronic): 12 April 2018

Publication date PMC-release: 12 April 2018

Publication date (Print): 2018

Volume: 28

Issue: 2

Pages: 451-455

Affiliations

[1 ]ISNI 0000000089452978, GRID grid.10419.3d, Center for Innovation in Medical Education, , Leiden University Medical Center, ; Zone V7-P, PO Box 9600, 2300 RC Leiden, the Netherlands

[2 ]ISNI 0000000089452978, GRID grid.10419.3d, Department of Immunohematology and Blood Transfusion, , Leiden University Medical Center, ; Leiden, the Netherlands

[3 ]ISNI 0000000089452978, GRID grid.10419.3d, Department of Molecular Cell Biology, , Leiden University Medical Center, ; Leiden, the Netherlands

[4 ]ISNI 0000000089452978, GRID grid.10419.3d, Department of Clinical Epidemiology, , Leiden University Medical Center, ; Leiden, the Netherlands

Article

Publisher ID: 565

DOI: 10.1007/s40670-018-0565-y

PMC ID: 6445509

PubMed ID: 31007968

SO-VID: 4c63eefe-d064-4fcd-8254-f4c6690f699d

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Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

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Funding

Funded by: Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC)

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Keywords: honors,extracurricular research program,physician-scientists,scholarly concentration

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Keywords: honors, extracurricular research program, physician-scientists, scholarly concentration

Using an Extracurricular Honors Program to Engage Future Physicians Into Scientific Research in Early Stages of Medical Training

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Most cited references 20

A review of literature on medical students and scholarly research: experiences, attitudes, and outcomes.

Impact of medical student research in the development of physician-scientists.

Extracurricular research experience of medical students and their scientific output after graduation.

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