Discovery Phase: what next? Co-directors contact information: Dr. Maureen Powers, Department of Cell Biology, Dr. Hank Blumberg, Department of Medicine, Ms. Michi Everett, Discovery Coordinator, Ms. Sherice Allen-Henry, Discovery Coordinator,

Have >100 potential projects so far from both clinical and basic departments with Another 7 already assigned to students. These are accessible at: Select Student page link and then “SEARCH RESEARCH PROJECTS>>” at the top Can be searched by: Mentor name, Department/Division, Key word. Can just browse through the full database if desired. “View full database”. Database of potential research projects. In order to be eligible for the Discovery Phase, a project must be approved and visible in the Database. If you have identified a mentor independently, the mentor MUST submit the project for approval. Keep in mind that there are requirements for serving as a mentor that must be met by the faculty. If you need to identify an Emory mentor for an off-site project or if you can’t find something in the area you are interested in, we will work with you to help find an appropriate mentor.

We encourage you to meet with potential mentors to discuss projects and find the best fit for you. Please do not request to work with a mentor you have not met, based only on their project description. But do be upfront with the mentors about where you are in your decision process so that they can budget their time. Choosing a Discovery Research Project Find an area that excites you and makes you want to learn more about it. The point is not just a letter for your residency application Look for projects that are part of an ongoing, productive research environment. It stands to reason that a mentor who is experienced at research can provide the best guidance in a research project. Look for projects that pose an hypothesis-driven, focused question that can be reasonably addressed in 5 months. Find a mentor with whom you have some rapport, ideally a person whose style or approach meshes well with yours – you will spend a considerable amount of time working with this person and they can provide advice and opportunities.

Once you have decided on a Mentor and project: From the Student page: use the Search Research Projects to find the page of the project you wish to work on. At the bottom of the project page, there is a link “Select This Project”. An will then be sent to the mentor to notify her/him that you have asked to be matched to that project. Once the mentor responds affirmatively, you will both be sent an that confirms the match and spells out your responsibilities for the Discovery Phase. You will then be asked for your name, and desired start date. For all 2014 start dates, Mentor must be finalized by Friday, December 13, You will each be asked to sign a Student or Mentor contract agreeing to these responsibilities.

After your match to a Mentor and Project is confirmed: A two page (single spaced, Arial font, 11 pt or larger), not including the title page or References, Research Proposal defining the Discovery Project is due in January/February. The research Mentor is expected to work closely with you on the development of the Proposal and MUST review and APPROVE the proposal PRIOR to submission. Along with your proposal you must submit a signed Proposal Approval form (original signature, not Digital, scanned and uploaded as pdf). For March, 2014 starts: 2 page proposals are due by Monday, January 23, For April, 2014 starts: 2 page proposals are due by Thursday, January 30, For May, 2014 starts: 2 page proposals are due by Thursday, February 20, For June or later, 2014 starts: 2 page proposals are due by Thursday, March 27, The Discovery Project Proposals will be submitted online through the web site as a Word document. Name the file “lastname proposal.doc” Discovery is graded and late submissions will impact your grade.

The Project Proposals will be reviewed by a Discovery Research Committee of Emory faculty. The committee will return the proposal to the student for modifications if deemed necessary. Acceptance rate has been about 45% on first submission . After the proposal is submitted: We will make every effort to return proposals needing changes to the student as soon as possible. Revised proposals must be resubmitted and accepted before the Discovery project can start. See the Timeline at the web site for due date of revision. IRB approval must be in place by 1 week before project is due to start. This is part of the Mentor’s contract for Discovery. You can review this online. Online CITI training must be completed by 1 week before the project start date. If these are not in place, your Discovery project start will be delayed.

Discovery is a 5 month course. Therefore your Discovery grade counts as 5 times the weight of any single clerkship or elective in calculating your GPA. Discovery Grading Breakdown of Discovery scoring: 2 Page research proposal10% SoCRATES exam10% Mentor’s evaluation15% Timeliness15% Final paper50% Plus/minus letter grades will be given on the standard SOM scale. The final paper presents the research you have done in the format of a medical/scientific manuscript of 8-10 pages. If you wrote a first authored manuscript for publication, you may submit the manuscript. Case reports or review articles are not acceptable as Discovery Final papers

The first part of the SoCRATES course will be given at 5 pm, October 22 and October 29, This will cover basic statistical methods and sample size calculations. These will be helpful in preparing research proposals. Attendance is MANDATORY. The second part of SoCRATES will take place over 3 half days in May Again, attendance is MANDATORY. Videotaped talks will be made available online for students doing their research project away from Emory. An exam will be given at the completion of SoCRATES that contributes 10% of the Final grade SoCRATES: Short Course in Clinical Research and Translational Experience in Science.

You may spend up to one half day per week seeing patients in the clinic other than for activities that are part of your Discovery project. Two weeks of vacation may be taken during the 5 month Discovery Phase. This can be at the beginning, the end or at some time during this period. The timing is to be arranged with your Mentor. You have the option to split Discovery into months if this works better with your data collection or your overall schedule with regard to residency apps, away rotations, etc. HOWEVER, no schedules other than 5 month or 4+1 months, and no start dates other than March-July will be permitted without consent of Dr. Blumberg and Dr. Powers. Discovery must be completed by December 31, The +1 month is not meant to be spent on residency interviews. You are given a month of time for your interviews. Schedule during Discovery Your mentor must be OK with your desired schedule, both start date and breakdown of 5 months or

Things may change from your original plans. The MOST important thing is to let us know of significant changes. Changes during Discovery Your project may vary from your starting proposal. This is the nature of research and It is fine. You do not need to let us know if your research is taking a different direction from what was planned. We do not compare your final paper to your proposal. Other changes may be highly significant. If your mentor leaves Emory in the middle of Discovery (this has happened) or some other even necessitates a change in mentor, contact us. We will work with you in identifying a new qualified mentor. If you chanage your Discovery schedule, let us know. If you run into major or insurmountable problems with your mentor, please get in touch. We can help in resolving them or, if not possible, help you find a new mentor/project. If you decide you want to extend Discovery and do a year of research, please let us know ASAP. You will do all parts of Discovery but you will submit your Final paper and participate in Research Day with the 2016 class.

Plagiarism

Any written work (ie Research Proposal, Final Paper) must be written in your own words. You may (and are encouraged to) read any papers, grants, or other materials from your mentor or research group in preparing your proposal or paper. You may NOT copy them. Plagiarism is subject to the Emory SOM Honor Council and is punished seriously.

Discovery Evaluations Approximately half way through Discovery we will send a very brief questionaire to students and mentors to check in and see that things are proceeding well. After completion of the Discovery Phase, a final paper is due (January 13, 2014). This is an 8-10 page paper in the format of a scientific/medical manuscript. A manuscript submitted from the Mentor’s group on which the student is a middle author is NOT acceptable. A manuscript on which the student is first author and was responsible for preparation of the manuscript IS acceptable. Case reports are NEVER permissable. More information on this will be provided as the time gets closer. At the end of the Discovery Phase the Mentor will submit an evaluation for the student and students will be asked to evaluate their experience and their mentors. All students will present their research as either a talk or a poster at Medical Student Research Day, April 2015 (exact date TBD). This will be part of the Capstone course. You are invited to attend the presentations from the current class April 17,

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We don’t have any. There are some funds from the SOM to help with the costs of international travel expenses for people doing international (not domestic) Discovery projects. We have been able to enable printing of posters at cost, about half the price of Kinkos. Unfortunately we can not provide funds to help defray the cost of travel to meetings to present your findings. We have been working on a list of organizations, foundations or societies that have Fellowships for medical student research. Will post this at the web site.

The Research Proposal Title page. Give the title of your project and list the investigators to be involved. The title should succinctly describe the project. List as investigators yourself, your Mentor(s), their Emory department Affiliation and, if the project is not to be conducted at Emory, indicate the research site and affiliation. Introduction/Background. Provide a description of the area or issue to be investigated. This should contain sufficient information to allow your proposal to be understood by a non-specialist in the field. Try to limit the amount of jargon. Be sure to include the medical significance of the issue to be investigated. Hypothesis: State in a sentence or two the specific hypothesis to be tested.

Research Proposal continued: Specific Aims: Enumerate the specific goals or testable questions to be addressed in the project. There will likely be 2 to 3 of these; be reasonable about what can be achieved in 5 months. To learn the literature or attend group meetings are NOT specific aims. Research Design: Describe how the project will be carried out. Include experi- mental methods, state how the resulting data will be analyzed including description of statistical analyses if applicable. Briefly state the manner in which patient consent and confidentiality will be addressed, if applicable. This should be the largest section of the proposal. If you are doing clinical research you must include a sample size calculation. Literature Cited: Give literature references for any papers cited. Use a format that includes full article title and authors as well as the citation. References do not count toward the 2 page limit for the proposal. Student Role in project: State specifically what YOU will be doing.

Figures: Should be included only if necessary. These must be embedded within the text and they WILL count toward the 2 page limit.