Application and Participation

Application

Students will complete a Scholarly Concentrations Declaration Form when they have identified a mentor. This form must be signed by both the student and mentor, and provided to both the area leader and the Office of Medical Student Research. The deadline for declaring a concentration area is January 10 of your M2 year.

Participation

To participate in the Scholarly Concentrations program, students will select a mentor and develop their individualized research proposal, both of which will be approved by the Area Director. Initial proposal should include:

• Mentor(s) Students must identify a faculty mentor. Students will be able to reach out to the SC Director/Co-Director, Area Directors (or find them on the OMSR website) to find a list of faculty interested in mentoring students. Students can also bring in outside faculty or mentors (pending Area Director Approval)
  •  Some SC's may not lend themselves to a traditional mentee/mentor relationship (e.g. public policy), so each SC will also be able to define what this relationship looks like
• Individualized Plan of Work/Project Proposal
  • Each plan of work must outline the student's plan for completing a Scholarly Concentration and describe outcomes they hope to achieve and methods for completing those outcomes.
  • Project Timeline Each student should agree with the proposed project timeline with specific checkpoints for their projects
    • Checkpoints should be every 3 - 6 months. These checkpoints should include a meeting between the student and mentor and result in a project update to be submitted to the Area Director
  • Academic Product Each student will plan to create an academic product and this should be defined in the project proposal. All students chosen to participate in the Scholarly Concentrations program are expected to present their work both in a poster format (during the research day) and oral presentation (during the annual Scholarly Concentrations event). In addition, students are encouraged to develop the following products: external poster/oral presentations, white papers, written theses, policy submission, and/or publication. The latter is up to the discretion of each Project Mentor.
• All final academic products must be approved by the respective Area Director. Results of final academic product submission can be: accept with no changes, accept with changes, or suggestion for resubmission.

Program Timeline

M1

• Satisfactory completion of Evidence Based Medicine Course
• Declare participation in a concentration area
• Choose a faculty mentor
• Write a Plan of Work

M2

• Satisfactory Completion of Evidence Based Medicine 2 Course
• Selective activities within each concentration to be decided by area directors (journal clubs, lectures, etc.)
• Continue Plan of Work

M3

• May continue Plan of Work during clerkships
• Participate in concentration activities (journal clubs, lectures, etc.)
• Write a review or primary paper within the concentration

M4

• Choose 2 electives from the relevant list provided by the area directors
• Continue to write a review or primary paper
• Final Report on accomplishments and/or any submitted manuscript or documents within the concentration area, reviewed and signed by faculty mentor

Plan of Work

• Initiation of project
  • First phase of projects should focus on scholarly review of existing literature, development of individualized project proposals, and submission of IRB (if collecting data).
• Execution of project
  • Second phase of the project should focus on reaching individualized project goals and directed learning in selected concentration.
• Finalization of project
  • During the last phase of the proposed timeline, students will complete their academic product described in a section above.
  • Students are encouraged to submit their work for presentation at regional and national/international conferences, and highly encouraged to publish their work in peer reviewed journals (if applicable).

Approval of Scholarly Concentrations Completion

• To complete a Scholarly Concentration, students will submit a final evaluation packet, which includes:
  • a description of how they achieved their initial objectives and their outcomes
  • final academic product
  • a reflection on SC's and how it relates to future career endeavors
• The student's Project Mentor will approve the evaluation packet
• The Project Mentor will make a recommendation to the Area Director for the student to receive SC credit.
• All final reports will be submitted by the Area Directors to the Director and Co-Director of the Scholarly Concentrations Program
• The Director and Co-Director of the Scholarly Concentrations Program can accept the recommendations from the Area Directors or seek further revisions of the academic product.

Recognition

Certificate in Concentration Area

• Pass Evidence Based Medicine Course (Seg. 1 & 2)
• Pass Step 1 and Step 2
• Pass all rotations in M3
• Pass 2 concentration specific rotations in M4
• Participate in 75%+ of additional activities scheduled in M3 and M4
• Submit final report on accomplishments

Distinction in Concentration Area

• Complete all components of certificate
• Obtain honors in 2 concentration specific rotations in M4
• Have at least 1 publication submitted to an appropriate journal, governing body, etc.