The Department of Pediatrics at Vanderbilt University is committed to training the next generation of leading pediatric investigators. While some residents will already have undertaken extensive research training prior to residency, we understand that others come to research later driven by a clinical problem or insight. As part of our residency, we have now developed a specialized program to enable residents with limited prior research training to undertake longitudinal training towards becoming physician-scientists. Our goal is to identify those applicants and residents with a passion for discovery in child health and provide them with the opportunities that activate and enhance their careers.

To achieve this goal, we have established at Vanderbilt a mentored training program (V-StARR) for residents possessing both the aptitude and passion to become a new generation of basic, clinical and translational clinician-scientists. The program will provide a nurturing mentored environment for Resident Investigators for one to two years of highly rigorous research training to facilitate transition to a research-focused fellowship with the ultimate goal of achieving independence as clinician-scientists. This program offers mentored training integrating with the proven and highly successful institutional clinician-scientist training programs at Vanderbilt. Each Resident Investigator will participate in workshops, courses, and our societies for clinician-scientist development and will complete a mentored research project. Investigation may be basic, translational, clinical, or in the area of population health. Each Resident Investigator will have a personalized Scholarly Oversight Committee to assist in achieving program goals, to provide independent evaluation of their progress, and to develop, advise on, and track their career development plan. All departments, hospitals, research laboratories and core facilities reside on a single campus offering an integrated research environment for early career physician-scientists.

If you are interested in improving child health through research, we encourage you to consider this amazing opportunity at Vanderbilt. We look forward to working with you to understand your goals and to help you connect them to the ideal mentoring and research training. If you would like more information about this program, please contact either Dr. Daniel Moore (Director of the Pediatric PSTP, daniel.moore@vumc.org) or Dr. Whitney Browning (Director of the Pediatric Residency Program, whitney.browning@vumc.org).