Doris Duke International Clinical Research Fellowship

The UNC Doris Duke Clinical Research Fellowship (UNC-CRF) is a "year out" experience for medical students who wish formal and experiential training in clinical and translational research. Doris Duke fellows spend a year at UNC Project-Malawi performing a research project with a faculty mentor and will undergo additional training in clinical research. Each fellow will be expected to formulate a specific research project with his or her mentor, write up the protocol including the statistical sections, and follow the protocol through relevant IRB and other approval processes. The student will then take primary responsibility for initiating and conducting the study.

The UNC-CRF program is divided into an intensive research fellowship year and a post-fellowship year. The objectives of the program are:

1. To understand, and participate in, the scientific process from hypothesis development to analysis of results.
2. To become aware of the regulations and regulatory bodies governing clinical research.
3. To develop data presentation skills: poster development, manuscript preparation, and oral presentation skills.
4. To understand the clinical research track in academic medicine.
5. To learn, and participate in, the peer-review process.
6. To develop a facility with data analysis.
7. To expose the fellows to state-of-the-art research techniques that will influence the clinical and translational research of the future.

Research Project

Each student will be required to develop a specific, focused research protocol, steer the protocol through the IRB approval process, conduct the study, and analyze the data. The mentors work closely with students to accomplish this goal. It is important to emphasize that all of the mentors involved with the CRF program are senior, independent researchers and each was selected according to the following criteria: extensive experience in mentoring trainees to research independence and peer-reviewed grant support in a patient-oriented research area which lends itself to a one-year student project. We expect that the day-to-day management of the student project will often be under the guidance of a more junior faculty member of the clinical research team, but that the senior faculty member will make a commitment to reviewing the progress of the CRF student on a regular basis, meeting with the scholar to discuss the experience, and taking part in the student's annual review process.

Post-Fellowship Year

The post-fellowship year may include additional coursework at the home institution, research costs for planned projects, and travel costs for both presentations and to clinical research meetings. The UNC-CRF will maintain contact with the CRF students and be able to report numbers of presentations, publications, continuing research, and residency plans for each of the students.

Application

The application deadline for fellowships beginning July 1 are in January. For more information about the DDICRF, click here or contact Irving Hoffman, U.S. director of UNC Project-Malawi.