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Overseas assistance: Stanford medical student Kavita Kishor Trivedi (right) helped women in Ahmedabad, India, with nutritional needs as part of her work in the Medical Scholars Program. |
In addition to tackling the academic rigors of medical school, students at the Stanford University School of Medicine have the chance to expand their research horizons by participating in a Medical Scholars Program. More than 75 percent of the medical students complete a research project through the program before they graduate.
While the Basic and Clinical Medical Scholars Program has been around for 20 years, in the past few years the program has added an Arts and Humanities Medical Scholars Program, a Community Partnerships for Medical Scholars, and a Biodesign Innovation Program. Students participating in these programs may receive 18 units of academic credit and up to $12,000 in research funding.
The Arts and Humanities Program started in 2000. "We believe that students should be given the opportunity and [be] encouraged to explore the arts and humanities in relation to medicine, and hence broaden their perspectives of the medical encounter and the meaning of illness," says the program's chair, Audrey Shafer, M.D., an associate professor in Stanford's Department of Anesthesia.
"Far and away the best aspect of the program is the student participation," Dr. Shafer says. "They are highly motivated, passionate, talented, interesting, and interested people who bring a wealth of new ideas and energy to the program."
The community partnership program gave out its first grants in 2001, largely as the result of increased student demand.
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Helping out: Stanford medical students at a 2002 health fair at the South County Community Health Center in Palo Alto, Calif. |
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"Students had been doing a lot of community-based work and were very interested in doing research with the community partners with whom they were working," says Ann Banchoff, the community program's associate director. "The Medical Scholars Program had not traditionally encouraged this kind of partnership research."
The main goal of the program is to give students the opportunity to work in partnership with community-based organizations, identify significant policy and practice issues for investigation, and meet the organizations' information needs, Banchoff says. The program provides grants for research related to health services delivery, community health, and medical science. "The research actually serves the needs of the community, whether it's a local or international community," she adds.
One student, Kavita Kishor Trivedi, 27, did a study in Ahmedabad, India, between September 2001 and May 2002, investigating the nutritional status of disadvantaged women. Working with the Ahmedabad Women's Action Group (AWAG), an organization that strives to empower Hindu and Muslim women of low socioeconomic status, she analyzed pregnancy and lactation cycles in three groups of 50 women.
"I was surprised to find that the group of non-pregnant, non-lactating women had much lower nutritional status and health than I anticipated," Trivedi says. "Thus, our subsequent interventions actually tried to focus on this group - mostly unmarried, menstruating girls."
As a result of the study, Trivedi and AWAG members encouraged the women from the non-pregnant, non-lactating group to seek medical attention during illness - something they did not usually do - and to marry after at least four years of regular menstruation, so that their nutritional reserves could be maximized.
The Biodesign Program, which began in the fall of 2001, was formed to be "an incubator for new medical device entrepreneurs," according to Teresa Robinson, the program's education and media coordinator.
The program was designed to accelerate development of the knowledge and the skills required to create - or improve upon - biomedical technologies, Robinson says. Participating students learn how to identify opportunities for innovation and to assess clinical needs and market potential, as well as how to go about patenting their inventions.
At the beginning of the course, students go through an "identification of needs" phase, spending a few weeks observing the activities of a hospital and compiling a list of types of medical devices that may be needed, according to Robinson. They later form groups to analyze whether there are, or could be, markets for the needs that they have identified.
Students have the choice to join the program full time under the fellowship track, an option combining hands-on work with teaching responsibilities. Another option is to take an elective track, which is a series of three unit classes. Stanford students from any program can apply to take these classes.
"The co-directors of this program have spent a lot of time creating it, as well as engaging in hands-on activities with the students," Robinson says. "This intimacy is able to accelerate the students' learning curves and the growth of their ideas."
By Suria Santana
Editor's note: For more information, visit www-med.stanford.edu/osa/medscholars.
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