Cardiovascular Research Fellowship Program

The Cardiovascular Research Fellowship program provides fellows with a two-year research-only fellowship, or a four-year combined clinical and research training program with the Cardiovascular Medicine Fellowship program. This program includes a master's degree in Translational Health System Science (THSS)

Since 2003, this program has successfully supported 45 clinical investigators-in-training, including 17(38%) women or individuals belonging to under-represented minority groups. Of the 37 clinician-scientist trainees who have completed both their research and additional clinical training, a majority, 24(65%), currently hold faculty positions in academic medical centers (e.g. University of Chicago, Cleveland Clinic, University of Alabama, Wake Forest University, etc.), or research and leadership positions in large private healthcare systems, foundations and industry including Intermountain Health, the Lindner Research Center, and Labcorp Drug Development. Many trainees from this program have gone on to pursue extramurally funded programs of research, received awards and honors for their research contributions, and assumed positions of leadership within their institutions and in professional societies devoted to promoting cardiovascular research. Collectively, since initial appointment in our training program, our trainees have published 573 manuscripts, including 227 as first author.

These manuscripts have been cited >13,000 times, and 35 publications are in the top 90th percentile of citations for all NIH funded manuscripts from the same field and year of publication based on NIH–iCite metrics (Fig. 1). This track record underscores the effectiveness of our program to develop skilled clinical researchers who are continuing to make significant contributions to cardiovascular research.

The master's curriculum provides formal training in Epidemiology and Biostatistics while providing tuition for the THSS program, along with a stipend. The program's training focuses in a variety of additional domains including Molecular epidemiology, Clinical informatics, Health system research and Pragmatic trials. In addition, other topics of relevance include joint mentorship with both clinical and basic science faculty in the chosen area of interest and participation in external NHLBI-sponsored short courses in cardiovascular epidemiology.

Program Goals and Objectives

Our educational goals and objectives include:

• Provide training in conceptual/theoretical frameworks, research methodologies and statistical methods essential to the design and conduct of clinical and epidemiologic research
• Provide training in a focused set of additional skills in a chosen area of emphasis relevant for a career as a clinical cardiovascular investigator
• Provide training in the basic skills of grant and manuscript preparation

Students will be required to design a thesis project of publishable quality that is closely aligned with their interests and career objectives. Students will work closely with a pair of program faculty mentors to design an individualized program of study.