TL1 Trainees Attend Clinical Investigator Student Trainee Forum

Research, Education, Training, and Career Development (RETCD) TL1 Trainee News

TL1 trainees and Emory University medical students, Alison Dormer and Rosiland Harrington attended the sixth annual Clinical Investigator Student Trainee Forum from November 4 through 5. Nearly 350 medical and dental students from 78 U.S. academic medical centers visited the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. for the forum.

"The forum was a useful experience, in particular because it facilitated interaction between participants of different types of "year-out" programs for medical students, and then also because there was a good amount of interaction with individuals already established in their fields. I got a broader sense of the range of careers available in academic medicine. It was also fascinating to tour the NIH facilities, I would have loved to see more," said Dormer.

The Clinical Investigator Student Trainee Forum helped prepare the next generation of clinician-scientists for careers in clinical and translational research that will lead to medical discoveries. It covered biomedical advances and addressed practical aspects of career development in clinical research, including the importance of mentoring.

"The forum helped me understand the role of mentor-mentee and what I, as a mentee should be doing to get the best experience from this program. One of the best presentations was given by a team of students and mentors who worked on a Resistant TB project in South Africa. Also, we were able to spend some time on the NIH campus and meet a few of the researchers. I appreciated getting information about the site," said Harrington.