The Vanderbilt Diabetes and Endocrinology Student Research Training Program strives to create an environment where each participant will have a positive research experience. Like the majority of biomedical research, this program relies on investigator-initiated research projects rather than centrally-designed research. That is to say that the student and her/his preceptor select an area of interest and design a research project. The student will utilize the expertise and resources in the preceptor’s laboratory to conduct her/his research. Since each student will have different interests and each preceptor will differ in her/his research focus, we want the student to choose the area of diabetes research where she/he will work. When at all possible, you will be able to choose any preceptor. However, to maximize the student’s experience, we only allow one student per preceptor so in some instances you may not get your first choice. If you only know what type of research you are interested in, we will provide guidance in identifying preceptors.

The interests of our preceptors span the entire spectrum from sophisticated biochemical/biophysical analysis to studies in humans. A list of our preceptors and their research interests is available on our web page. Although your ultimate interest is human disease (that’s why you went to medical school!), we encourage you to take a broad view of how basic research ultimately interacts with human diseases. For example, basic laboratory research and studies in animals have great impact on how we view and treat human diseases. While you are undoubtedly anxious to participate in research that will impact human disease, this does not necessarily require your research efforts to directly involve humans. Most of our preceptors are involved in research that is relevant to human disease, but does not directly involve humans.

With your input, we would like to assign your preceptor before you arrive. Please complete and submit the form, Choosing Your Research Preceptor-2. After reviewing your responses, we will match you with a preceptor. To ensure that each participant receives maximum interaction with his/her preceptor, we assign only one student to each preceptor. For this reason, it is possible that you might not receive your first choice, but I assure that you will have an excellent experience with any of our preceptors.

You will also need to complete the "Participant Information" form by TBA.

The Medical Student Summer Research Training Program is supported by the Vanderbilt Short Term Research Training Program for Medical Students (NIH grant DK007383) and the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center (NIH grant DK20593).