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Programs

Mentor-Protégé Curriculum

The mentor-protégé curriculum is an annual program designed to ensure the availability of quality mentors. Currently, all UR CTSI trainees and their mentors are required to participate in at least some elements of the curriculum. The curriculum requires each protégé to develop a Research Career Development Plan (RCDP) with assistance from their primary mentor. The customized RCDP is a detailed document outlining the trainee’s research knowledge, skills and attitudes needed for long-term academic progress, as well as the specific activities needed to accomplish progress broken down into short and intermediate outcome measures. Curricular content is supported by online educational exercises, mentor-protégé workshops, bi-annual seminars with a luncheon as well as individual meetings with a member of the Mentor Development Core (MDC), each of whom is assigned 3-5 mentor-protégée dyads. A member of the MDC meets with the protégé in the fall and the mentor-protégé dyad (or committee, if more than one main mentor) in the spring and provides written, formal feedback on progress, barriers and suggestions for improvement. Protégés update their RCDP and are asked to provide feedback on their mentors and vice versa using annual surveys. Summary reports will be brought to the Mentor Development Core and, if any deficiencies are identified, the Key Function Director or other MDC members will meet with the mentor. If deficiencies persist, the Scholar may need to identify another mentor.

Career Development Plans

Below are links to the career development plan used by the UR CTSI trainees and scholars, as well as another example from Science Careers used at URMC and other institutions:

Practical Skills in Grant Writing (PM 438)

Practical Skills in Grant Writing is a course intended to provide the student interested in a career in the life sciences with practical skills related to procuring external support for research. The course content includes a variety of didactic lectures on grant-related topics, discussion sessions with the opportunity to examine grants that others have written, examination of tools and resources available to assist in grant writing, and the opportunity to write a grant for support of the student's own research project and have it critiqued. At the end of the course, the enrollee should be able to write a research grant.

Access archived lectures from the grant writing course.

Mentor-Protégé Writing Course

The course is designed to teach mentors to effectively and efficiently teach scientific writing and to provide the basics of scientific writing to protégés. The course is open to all medical center faculty and complements other courses, such as Practical Skills in Grant Writing. Mentors and their trainees start with a series of classes on the fundamentals of good writing and end by completing their own grant application or manuscript. The course is taught by Constance Baldwin, PhD Professor of Pediatrics, who has given many writing courses for Pediatrics fellows as well as the American Association of Medical Colleges, the American Pediatrics Association and University of Texas-Galveston.

Access Dr. Baldwin's "Nuts and Bolts of Scientific Writing."

Mentor Consultation Service

Mentor consultations are now available through the UR CTSI's Research Navigator Program to expand the number of investigators who obtain mentored research funding. A member of the MDC is available to meet with interested faculty applying for K-award, Clinical Research Center support or in need of academic career planning to provide feedback on their mentoring plan.

Contact the Research Help Desk.

Clinical Translational Science Institute logoThe Mentor Development Core is part of the University of Rochester Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). Click here for the CTSI home page.

Research Help is the home for tools and resources to help research teams reach their goals. Click here for Research Help.