Mentored Scholarly Project

Funding Opportunities             Available Mentors

UCI Medical Student Mentored Scholar Project in Clinical and Translational Science

Goal: To provide UCI medical students the opportunity to develop insight and understanding of translational biomedical research through completion of a mentored scholarly project over the 4 years of medical school.

Scholar Program Essentials:

• • The student designs and successfully completes a hypothesis-driven research Scholarly Project (SP).
  • Students work closely with mentors and the UCI Institute of Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) office throughout the four years of their project. Through this process students learn about medical information literacy, lifelong learning, teamwork, effective communication, research methods, evidence-based medicine approaches and ethics related to scholarly inquiry.

PROGRAM OVERVIEW

Year 1: Students pair with a faculty mentor with similar interests and goals. The student and mentor submit a project prospectus. Once institutional review board compliance is fulfilled the student begins the research project.

Year 2: The student and mentor meet regularly to carry out the research project. The student provides an oral presentation of their progress to a panel of faculty.

Year 3 (the clerkship year): The student and mentor continue to meet regularly, however, the student's time to work on the project may be limited due to clerkship activities.

Year 4: The student submits a final poster and thesis summarizing their SP. Each student presents the poster at the annual Student Research Symposium, where selected students also provide oral slide presentations. All these are published in bound hard copies and posted online (link is external) for public access.

Mentor Expectations

• • Have sufficient expertise and resources to support the proposed research experience of the medical student

• • Assist student in planning their project by setting reasonable, attainable goals & establishing a timeline for completion of the project

• • Meet with the student on a regular basis

• • Direct the project of the medical student

• • Attend 6 month meetings with the ICTS to track the students’ progress

The ICTS will provide administrative support to the students throughout the 4 year program.