NRSA for Primary Medical Care - Eligibility: Funding from NOFO # HRSA-11-154 to OUHC/Dept Pediatrics/Paul Darden This application seeks HRSA T32 funding for a primary care research training program at the University of Oklahoma Health Campus (OUHC). The OUHC PRAIRIE Fellowship trains postdoctoral fellows including PhD, family medicine and pediatric physicians to be primary care researchers. The research training program is an expansion of a previous postdoctoral training program, with a rigorous research curriculum focused on primary care research. OUHC maintains extensive research facilities, including clinical and practice-based research networks (PBRNs) and large-dataset analytic capacity.1 The PI and Project Director, Paul Darden, MD, has experience in postdoctoral research training, involvement with curriculum development at the national level, and involvement with clinical research networks and primary care PBRNs.1,2 Dr. Darden previously developed and directed successful research-training programs at OUHC and at the Medical University of South Carolina. The Project Co-Director, Valerie Williams, PhD, has extensive experience and a national reputation for faculty and mentor development. The program has strong faculty in a state with a large rural and medically underserved population, a high burden of chronic disease, and a critical need for primary care research. Improving the care of patients, especially at-risk patients, is best done through projects directly involving primary care practices. Our program will train future primary care researchers, guided by the principles of adult education, through a rigorous research curriculum.1,3 Fellows will develop an Individualized Development Plan (IDP) and receive a strong research foundation by completing course work in a Master of Science in Clinical and Translational Science (MS-CTS) or comparable program. Issues affecting patients across the lifespan will be emphasized including chronic disease prevention, asthma, obesity, cancer screening, aging, and tobacco cessation. The chronic care model, a structure for research in chronic disease in primary care, will frame disease specific training.4,5 The availability of practice-based research will enhance the relevance of our research training.6 We are collaborating with three practice-based research networks: (1) OKPRN, a long-standing and productive family practice network, and (2) OCHRN, a pediatric network plus an NIH-funded national clinical research network, and the Oklahoma Pediatric Clinical Trials Network (OPCTN). We will accept 2 to 4 postdoctoral fellows per year for a total of 4 fellows at any given time. The goal of the fellowship is to increase the number of highly qualified individuals capable of conducting rigorous primary care research. We have 3 program objectives: (1) develop and enhance research training opportunities for individuals interested in careers in primary care research, (2) increase the number of researchers focused on primary care issues that transform health care delivery, and (3) share fellow research findings to advance primary care. The strongest predictors of success as a fellow, and later as a proficient faculty investigator, are time spent doing research and effective mentorship.3 All fellows are assigned a mentor and a Scholarship Oversight Committee (SOC) in their first month. For assessment of the program outcomes, we will rely on 5 sources of information: (1) educational evaluations of all courses and instructors; (2) twice-yearly surveys to monitor fellows’ experiences; (3) bi-yearly interviews of fellows to provide qualitative data; (4) yearly post-graduate surveys of fellowship graduates to monitor their activities for a 10-year period; and (5) a survey sent to their Chair or immediate supervisor addressing the graduates’ research, teaching, and administrative skills one year after completion of the fellowship.
