MSTP at Mayo Clinic Rochester - Project Summary
The mission of the Mayo Clinic Medical Scientist Training Program (MSTP) is to train clinician-scientist leaders
of the future. Our program is designed to mentor a diverse group of trainees whom we individually guide on
their journeys to develop the technical, operational, and professional skills to support a productive career in
which they integrate research and clinical activities to advance biomedical science. In order to fulfill our mission
of developing these future clinician-scientist leaders, we propose four measurable objectives that will serve as
the foundation of our program: 1) To provide a fully integrated scientific and clinical training program that will
help trainees develop the skills needed to recognize and address important clinical problems while
simultaneously enabling our graduates to move easily between research and clinical environments; 2) To
develop a diverse group of future leaders who possess the self-confidence and communication skills to share
scientific concepts with colleagues and individuals at all scientific levels as well as scientific and political leaders;
3) To encourage trainees to develop self-reflective skills that will lead to rigor in their own science and recognition
of instances where rigor and reproducibility tenets may be lacking; and 4) To provide trainees with experiences
that reflect their own long-term scientific goals in academia or other careers. This MSTP admits nine MD-PhD
trainees per year from a pool of over three hundred applicants. Ninety-six carefully vetted and trained laboratory
mentors will provide a safe learning environment and guide rigorous research. The co-Directors, Drs. Schimmenti
and Kaufmann, have over thirty years of combined experience in MD-PhD leadership and are committed to the
success and well-being of every trainee. Under-represented trainees make up seventeen percent of the trainee
cohort, with planned enrollment of twenty percent at the end of the 2021 admissions season. Mayo Clinic’s three-
part mission comprised of patient care, research, and education, provides a rich environment for training. The
average time to degree for the last ten years of graduates is 8.18 years, with a mean of 4.3 first author papers
per trainee and 8.7 total papers per trainee. Trainees are required to submit an F award or equivalent; and the
success rate over the last ten years has been 58%. Trainees match well, with three of five trainees matching in
physician scientist training programs in 2021. A self-reflective iterative evaluation process has been developed
and implemented to support cycles of program improvement with goals to support rigor and reproducibility
training, trainee retention, a diverse learning community, decreased time to degree, scholarship, and career
satisfaction. The long-term goal of the program is to provide each dual-degree graduate a firm foundation for a
lifetime of career success in research and research related fields.