NIH Training Opportunities

The National Institutes of Health’s Office of Clinical Research Training and Medical Education offers an extensive range of clinical research training opportunities to prepare the next generation of clinician-scientists. Brief descriptions of the programs are provided below. As world’s largest biomedical research agency, the NIH encourages future clinician-scientists and medical researchers to consider adding an NIH experience to their portfolio.

Medical Research Scholars Program

  • MRSP is a comprehensive, residential year-long research training program designed to attract the most talented, research-oriented medical, dental, and veterinary students to the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland, to engage in a mentored basic, translational, or clinical research project in an area that matches their personal interests and career/research goals.  The application deadline, January 11, 2019.  https://cc.nih.gov/training/mrsp/index.html

Graduate Medical Education

  • NIH currently sponsor 17 medical specialty or subspecialty programs, accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). We also jointly sponsor clinical training programs with extramural training partners, to include Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland, and the National Capital Consortium. In addition, we sponsor numerous “one of kind” translational medicine fellowship training programs.  https://cc.nih.gov/training/gme/programs1.html

Clinical Elective Programs

  • Short term—4 to 12 week—clinically oriented elective rotations for senior medical and dental students; unique mentored specialty/subspecialty clinical research rotations are also available for combined program students (i.e., MD/PhD, DO/PhD). https://cc.nih.gov/training/students/clinical_electives.html

Resident Elective Programs

  • Provides an experience with direct care of patients enrolled in investigational protocols at the NIH.  In addition to patient care responsibilities, resident physicians will have exposure to the design, conduct, and management of investigational protocols, including clinical trials. https://cc.nih.gov/training/physicians/info.html

Clinical and Translational Research Course for Ph.D. Students

  • Two-week intensive introductory course to demonstrate the role of PhD scientists in clinical and translational research, provide an overview and examples of how basic science and clinical observations lead to translational research, and increase awareness and access to Ph.D. role models, research resources, and potential career opportunities at the NIH. https://cc.nih.gov/training/phdcourse/index.html

Postdoctoral Research Training Awards

  • Provides the opportunity for recent doctoral degree recipients to enhance their research skills in the resource-rich National Institutes of Health (NIH) environment, which consists of more than 1200 laboratories/research projects. https://www.training.nih.gov/programs/postdoc_irp

Graduate Partnerships Program

Core Curriculum in Clinical Research

  • Free courses offered as distance learning: Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Clinical Research (IPPCR); Principles of Clinical Pharmacology (PCP); and Ethical and Regulatory Aspects of Clinical Research.  https://ocreco.od.nih.gov/courses/ccr.html