BIRWCH - General Information

The Schools of the Health Affairs and Academic Affairs Campuses at UNC have a long history of independent and interdisciplinary research on issues that relate to women's health. The UNC Health Care System, which was recently formed through the combination of the UNC School of Medicine and UNC Hospitals, has a strong tradition of clinical service, education, and research in women's health.

The NIH "Building Interdisciplinary Research Careers in Women's Health" career development program at UNC is a central and organizing entity that brings together UNC researchers whose central focus is women's health.

Career Objectives of the BIRCWH at UNC

The short term objectives of the UNC BIRCWH Program are to:

Provide the infrastructure and resources necessary to identify, recruit, and then educate junior faculty members who are interested in and committed to research careers in women's health;

Develop a network of senior faculty mentors, organized according to three broad research themes, that will enhance and expand the interdisciplinary research opportunities in women's health available to the scholars;

Ensure, in a carefully mentored setting, the necessary protected time for both didactic learning and research training that will ultimately produce junior faculty members who are able to achieve research independence; and,

Increase institutional awareness about the various research opportunities in women's health that are currently available in many existing Departments, Centers, and Programs at UNC.

The long-term objective of the UNC BIRCWH Program is to:

Improve the health of women in North Carolina, the nation, and the world by training and retraining members of the next generation of independent academic women's health researchers. We are confident that these young people will produce novel insights and interdisciplinary approaches to women's health, both from the research bench and from the bedside.

Career Development Plans for BIRCWH Scholars at UNC

Selection of scholars will be based on the perceived likelihood that their participation in the UNC BIRCWH Program will lead to young faculty members with a high likelihood of achieving both academic success and research independence. We anticipate substantial differences in the background, prior research experience, and target areas of interest of our BIRCWH Scholars. Indeed, we believe that this diversity will be one of the great strengths of the UNC BIRCWH Program. Despite these differences, there are four specific program components that all BIRCWH Scholars will be required to participate in:

Course on: The Responsible Conduct of Research

BIRCWH Seminar Series;

Annual BIRCWH Research Day; and

Interval of intensive mentored research.

The other features of the UNC Program, all of which are optional, will include coursework, curricula, and/or a variety of degree-granting programs.

Required Didactic Components of the UNC BIRCWH Program

Responsible Conduct of Research

The UNC General Clinical Research Center is a primary sponsor of an intensive course that is provided each summer for junior faculty members, post doctoral fellows, and graduate students. This course was originally developed by Dr. Orringer, then the GCRC Program Director, and Dr. David Weber, the GCRC Epidemiologist. The design of the course is such that it meets (or, in most cases, exceeds) all of the NIH requirements for individuals supported by NIH training grants. The material, presented in a series of lectures, seminars, and panel discussions, exposes the participants to many members of the senior faculty at UNC. The course emphasizes the bounds of acceptable conduct while, at the same time, acknowledging that there is no single "correct" answer for many specific issues. Through the use of a number of case studies drawn from two separate monographs: Scientific Integrity (Francis Macrina, ed. ASM Press, Washington DC, 1995) and Teaching the Responsible Conduct of Research Through a Case Study Approach (Association of American Medical Colleges, 1994), the "students" themselves become very much involved in all aspects of the educational process. This course is supplemental with updates in our seminar series that will also allow the Scholars to ask questions pertinent to their ongoing research.

BIRCWH Seminar Series

The BIRCWH Seminar Series, which meets twice per month, is organized and directed by Drs. Lessey and McMahon. At these meetings, the scholars will come together as a group to receive formal, didactic instruction on women's health-related issues, especially those that are relevant to the central themes of the UNC BIRCWH Program. The range of topics to be covered during the Seminar Series will be quite broad. Furthermore, it will expand over time. The initial seminars are focused on the themes that are central to the Research Plan of the UNC BIRCWH Program. However, we intend to use the seminars not only to teach a specific research area, but also to expand on the area to include interdisciplinary perspectives and discussion. For example, a seminar on irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) could easily be used to explore population-based statistics, gender-based differences in disease presentation and/or treatment, the potential impact of IBS research on women's health care outcomes, methodologic research challenges such as minority recruitment, use of various statistical techniques, etc.

In addition to the delivery of formal, didactic presentations, the BIRCWH Seminar Series will accomplish a variety of other important objectives. For example, we view each seminar will be a common forum where the scholars, the mentors, and other interested individuals can come together to explore multidisciplinary perspectives on issues relevant to research in women's health in a more broad sense. The Seminar Series will also provide the scholars with a familiar, non-threatening venue where they can describe their own research and then receive comments and constructive criticism on their individual speaking style and on the format and content of handouts, posters, and/or oral presentations. Finally we use the BIRCWH Seminar Series to review issues such as professional development, time management, and the role of the Scholar as a leader of a research team. Such practical issues are generally under-emphasized in formal coursework.

BIRCWH Research Day

In coordination with the North Carolina Program for Women's Health Research, the UNC BIRCWH Program holds an Annual Research Day program entitled: Research in Women's Health. One of the highlights of the Annual Research Day will be the visit to UNC of a national leader in the field of women's health research. As a part of the Annual Research Day program, each BIRCWH Scholar who in the actively mentored training phase of the program will give a formal presentation of his/her research.

Optional Didactic Training Available for Scholars

All Curricula and Centers that will serve as research mentoring sites for BIRCWH Scholars have their own, individual seminar series. Therefore, in addition to participation in the mandatory programs, all BIRCWH Scholars attend seminar series either within their formal didactic curriculum and/or at their mentoring site. Because all Centers are UNC are, by definition multidisciplinary, participation in these seminar programs will afford the scholars an opportunity to obtain additional educational material and to present their own research.

It is anticipated that all IWHR Scholars will have an appreciation of epidemiology, biostatics, health economics, and scientific methods as appropriate to the research that they will undertake. Therefore, as part of the application process, each candidate for the BIRCWH Program prepares a personal statement that reviews their initial competencies and identifies the need for more formal training in these (as well as other) areas. We believe that a major strength of the UNC BIRCWH Program is its close linkage to a wide variety of degree-granting programs, curricula, individual courses, and workshops, all of which will be available to the scholars as they seek to become increasingly independent investigators. These programs include:

Core Curriculum from the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program (RWJCSP) is a multi-disciplinary program that has been designed to teach the methods of clinical research design to physicians who have completed residency (and in some cases a subspecialty) training. UNC is one of seven national sites that hosts a RWJCSP. The core curriculum meets two hours per day, three times a week, throughout the year. For additional information contact: Dr. David Ransohoff.

Elective Courses for Academic Credit
UNC's Health Affairs campus includes a School of Public Health. There are many electives available through the Departments of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Maternal-Child Health, and Health Education. Many of these courses focus upon more advanced aspects of research design and data analysis. In addition to the clinical evaluative sciences, there are many courses available to BIRCWH Scholars that will enhance their scientific, laboratory-based skills.

MPH Degree
Earning an MPH degree may be appropriate for some BIRCWH Scholars. An MPH degree can be earned either in the Program in Health Care and Prevention or in one of the various departments in the School of Public Health. &ngsp;The requirements to obtain the MPH degree vary by department or program in the School of Public Health. The School minimum is 30 credit hours. Earning an MPH degree in any department or program requires courses in five specific areas. There include: Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Environmental Health, Social Health, and Health Policy. The RWJCSP Core Curriculum, along with the segments on biostatistics taught as BIOS 140 and which all Core Curriculum participants take, counts for 10 hours in Epidemiology and 4 hours in Biostatistics. The recently developed Health Care and Prevention Program has designed several new courses, all of which have a clinical orientation. The courses taught in this Program do address the School of Public Health requirements for the other 3 courses, while at the same time providing content that is particularly appropriate for physicians. While it is theoretically possible to obtain enough credits for an MPH degree in one year, most students, and certainly those preparing for a serious career in clinical research, will take 2 years. For most trainees, the first year will be very didactic course-intensive, while the second year will be devoted primarily to a research project. In the case of a BIRCWH Scholar, we envision the second year to involve the development of the research plan, the formation of the mentoring relationship, and the preparation of a proposal for pilot project funding.

We expect the Program on Health Care and Prevention (HC&P) to provide an administrative home for many of the BIRCWH Scholars who choose to earn an MPH degree. Until recently, trainees seeking to earn an MPH degree had to enroll in one of the departments in the School of Public Health (e.g., Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Maternal and Child Health, etc.). The HC&P Program, housed jointly within the Schools of Public Health and Medicine, has been developed specifically for physicians and other clinically-oriented public health trainees. We have found that individuals in this program often have a broad spectrum of backgrounds and career interests. Some trainees, for example, are medical students, some are physicians from the private sector (e.g., managed care), and some are physicians from the public sector (e.g., health departments). All share the common goal of a desire to study public health.

Intensive Research Mentorship

During the application process, each candidate is asked to identify one or two research mentors as part of the personal statement that they submit with their application packet. With only a rare exception, we expect that this mentor will be one of the individuals listed on the website. The scholar's research will be carried out in the Department or Center where the mentor works. It is important to emphasize that all of the UNC BIRCWH mentors are senior, independent researchers and each was selected according to the following criteria:

extensive experience in mentoring young faculty through to research independence;

expertise and peer-reviewed grant support in one of the areas of importance to women's health that has been selected for the research; and

ongoing, interdisciplinary collaborations as demonstrated by Departmental and Center appointments.

The BIRCWH mentor has the primary responsibility for guiding the Scholar toward research independence. Each mentor will be involved in helping the scholar to develop both hypotheses and research protocols. In addition, the mentor will provide the initial "peer review" that will help to validate the scientific merit of proposals, and assist the scholar to obtain appropriate interdisciplinary consultations. The mentors will also assist the scholars in obtaining protocol approval from the IRB and, when necessary, from the other institutional review panels (i.e., GCRC Committee, Cancer Center Review Committee, Institutional Biosafety Committee, etc.). The mentor will also assist with all phases of grant preparation, and with the development of effective and scholarly presentations and publications. It is anticipated that once the period of intensive research mentorship begins, the scholar will spend 75% of his/her time in the research setting under the direction of the mentor. Even if the Scholar's career development does include a preliminary, formal curricula or degree program, we expect the research mentor and the scholar to meet on a regular basis. Together, they will review the scholar's academic progress and work together on the development of the scholar's specific research plan.

If the scholar's research mentor is a member of a department other than the one in which the scholar holds a primary faculty appointment, the scholar will have a second "career" mentor. In these cases, the BIRCWH research mentor and the career mentor from the department will, along with the PI and PD, make up a Scholar Advisory Committee.

Travel by Scholars to Scientific Meetings

In consultation with their research mentor and as approved by the Program Director, each Scholar may apply for travel to one scientific meeting per year of award. It is anticipated that Scholars will prepare posters, abstracts, and presentations for such meetings.