Research Fellowship

This Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) accredited fellowship is designed to train the fellow in the ethical conduct of clinical research and to provide the skills necessary to obtain extramural funding and to become an independent physician-scientist in emergency medicine. The program will consist of: (1) intensive mentorship by a team of highly-skilled, independently-funded scientists; (2) obtaining a master-level degree in epidemiology, clinical sciences, health services, biostatistics, public health, or related discipline in conjunction with the Colorado School of Public Health, the University of Colorado Denver, and the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute; (3) initiating and completing a substantial research project, selected on the basis of the project’s educational value, its clinical or scientific merit, and on the fellow’s long-term research interests; and (4) working as an attending physician in the emergency department at Denver Health Medical Center or the University of Colorado Hospital.

This fellowship requires a two-year commitment to complete both the advanced degree and other research training requirements. The successful candidate will be a recent graduate of an accredited emergency medicine residency program who wishes to pursue a career in clinical research.

Program Leadership

Elizabeth Goldberg, MD, ScM, FACEP
Co-Fellowship Director
Clinical Site: University of Colorado Hospital

Jason Haukoos, MD, MSc
Co-Fellowship Director
Denver Health, Director of Research, Denver Health Department of Emergency Medicine

The Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, with its two nationally-recognized academic hospitals, Denver Health Medical Center and the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital, propose a structured two-year clinical research fellowship training program aimed at physicians completing emergency medicine residency training who desire a career as a scientist. Fellows will ultimately be trained, over the course of the two-year curriculum, to design and conduct high-quality, practice changing research. Integration with existing institutional scientific development programs (e.g. institutional T and K grants), a robust community of individual K award scholars and independent (R funded) investigators, and a highly successful departmental research-in-progress program will create synergy between this fellowship, fellows, and mentors within the larger Colorado scientific community. Finally, close collaboration with the Colorado Clinical Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) Education, Training, and Career Development programs and involvement with several national clinical trials networks will enhance the experience of our fellows by leveraging other established institutional resources for the development of scientists.

The fellowship will provide robust individualized career development and scientific mentorship, formal training in advanced research methods and statistics culminating in a Master-level research degree, applied research activities, including development and completion of a substantive research project with the fellow as principal investigator (PI), and scientific and grant writing experience. During the fellowship, fellows will be appointed as instructors or fellows in the department and will devote at least 75% of their effort to research training with the balance of effort working as an attending physician in the emergency department supervising residents and providing clinical teaching. At the conclusion of the training program, fellows will be poised to successfully compete for career development (K series) funding and an academic faculty position at the assistant professor rank.

The vision for the Colorado Emergency Medicine Clinical Research Fellowship Program is to become a national leader and the Rocky Mountain hub for fellowship training of scientists in emergency care research. Our overarching goal is to leverage and extend our current clinical and research infrastructure and expertise to provide high-quality training of early-stage investigators in emergency care research while also linking an exemplary group of interdisciplinary emergency care scientists and clinicians, medical directors, and programmatic leaders to contribute practice changing research. This fellowship will accelerate our investigative growth as a department while building capacity to ensure long-term academic productivity for emergency medicine, both locally and nationally.

To leverage and expand the existing Denver Health-based fellowship to include a high-quality pre-K award research fellowship program fully integrated within the academic CU Department of Emergency Medicine
To leverage departmental and institutional infrastructure for research training and mentorship, and activities to support fellows
To establish a process for consistent recruitment of high-quality fellowship candidates
To create individualized career development plans for each fellow, including specific goals for education and mentorship, and milestones for research project completion, publications, and future grant funding
To prepare fellows with requisite skills in research methods, and effective scientific communication and collaboration for successful transition to career development funding
To prepare fellows to successfully compete for academic faculty positions following fellowship and to successfully obtain individual K series funding
To provide foundational training for ultimate transition to independence as an investigator

The research fellowship will require a minimum of two years to complete with the option of an additional third year. The overall goals of the fellowship are to: (1) complete a research-based Master degree program; (2) fulfill additional learning objectives as outlined for the fellowship (3) complete at least one clinical research study with the fellow functioning as the PI; (4) benefit from diverse, intensive mentored, and adjunctive educational opportunities; and (5) submit at least one (but likely more) grant applications for career development or pilot grant funding.

During the two-year training period, the fellow will learn material from 15 core content areas, integrated between advanced methodological coursework, applied research, and mentorship. The core content areas include: (1) identification of an area of focus; (2) hypothesis development; (3) research design; (4) data collection; (5) data monitoring; (6) data analyses; (7) research presentation; (8) manuscript development and publication; (9) grant funding; (10) project management; (11) research ethics; (12) regulatory requirements; (13) informatics; (14) clinical and teaching skills; and (15) academic career development. As program directors, Drs. Haukoos and Ginde will be responsible for assessing and documenting the adequacy of knowledge and experience in each of the 15 areas in conjunction with the other mentors.

As a broad overview, the learning objectives will be fulfilled through: (1) completion of the fellow’s primary research project; (2) meetings with the fellow’s mentors; (3) completion of an advanced degree in research methods; (4) presentation at local, regional, and national scientific meetings; and (5) continued clinical experience as an attending emergency physician at Denver Health Medical Center or the UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital.

Several options exist for formal advanced research training in Colorado, including but not necessarily limited to the following Master degree programs: (a) Master of Science in Clinical Sciences (Graduate School and CCTSI, University of Colorado Denver); (b) Master of Science in Epidemiology (Department of Epidemiology, CSPH); (c) Master of Science in Health Services Research (Department of Health Systems, Management, and Policy, CSPH); and (d) Master of Public Health with 14 different areas of concentration (e.g., epidemiology, biostatistics, global health, health services research, health systems, management, and policy) (Colorado School of Public Health).

Fellows will matriculate into one of the Master-level programs at the outset of the fellowship. If a fellow already has an advanced research degree, formal matriculation into a degree-granting program may be replaced with selected coursework to augment prior training. Fellows may also elect to matriculate into doctoral programs in epidemiology, clinical sciences, or health services research with the intention of completing coursework during the fellowship but completing the dissertation portion after fellowship; a doctoral degree is not a requirement of the fellowship. Dr. Haukoos (Program Co-Director) has appointments in the Department of Epidemiology, CSPH, as well as the Clinical Sciences Graduate Program, University of Colorado Denver; Dr. Ginde (Program Co-Director) has an appointment in the Department of Epidemiology, CSPH; and both will facilitate fellow integration into the programs.

Each fellow will be embedded in a mentorship team specifically tailored to his or her career development needs and scientific interests. Each team will consist of individuals with extensive experience successfully mentoring early-stage investigators, but with complimentary expertise. Fellows will be paired with a primary mentor and two to four additional mentors who will focus specifically on career development, the fellow’s content area, and research methods. Under the direction of Drs. Haukoos and Ginde, the Colorado Emergency Medicine Clinical Research Fellowship has been organized into two distinct, but complementary, mentorship platforms, including Academic & Career Development Mentorship and Scientific & Research Methods Mentorship.

Primary Research Project

Using the fellow’s specific content area interests, our fellowship team will leverage the strengths described above to develop a scientifically sound primary research project for each fellow, to be completed during the two-year fellowship period with the fellow serving as the principal investigator. He or she will be responsible for oversight, planning, enrollment, data collection and management, analyses, and reporting in conjunction with his or her mentorship team and other ancillary research support staff, as needed. In general, three specific aims will be used to frame the project with the added goal of using the project as substrate for early grant submissions (see Section 4.2). The research project will also be specifically planned with thought towards a future K-series career development award application. We anticipate the primary fellowship project resulting in several scientific abstracts and peer-reviewed publications.

Secondary Research Projects

During the fellowship period, each fellow will also participate in several secondary research projects, specifically and strategically selected by the fellow’s primary mentor to augment the fellow’s training. Acquisition of applied research skills is a critical driver of research success; as such, in close conjunction with the fellow’s mentors, each fellow will actively participate in additional projects, including methodological consultation, data management, statistical analyses, and reporting in both abstract and publication form, to strategically supplement his or her research development. This approach will not only provide an extended applied learning experience for the fellow but will also accelerate his or her publication track record, with multiple publications expected by the end of fellowship.

Regular educational and mentor meetings will be an integral component of the fellowship training program. These meetings will be held for the duration of the fellowship to provide ongoing instruction in the fundamentals of research and to ensure that the study and fellowship training objectives are achieved in a timely fashion. The fellow will actively participate in all aspects of these meetings as a facilitator and presenter. These meetings and educational opportunities will include: (1) weekly meetings with the fellow’s primary mentor; (2) weekly research administrative meetings; (3) monthly meetings with the career development team; (4) monthly meetings with secondary mentors; (5) monthly emergency medicine scientist training and intensive mentorship meetings; and (6) a variety of seminars provided by the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI), collaborative study group meetings, and national emergency medicine research groups and conferences.

Weekly meetings with the fellow’s primary mentor and monthly or twice-monthly meetings with the fellowship director (if not the primary mentor as well) will be held both to monitor study progress and to provide ongoing mentorship and instruction in the fundamentals of all phases of the research process, including data collection, statistical analysis, manuscript preparation, and overall study management. The educational program for the fellow will encompass both formal training in research design and methods and mentored departmental, institutional, regional and national research and educational opportunities. This multi-faceted approach is intended to afford each fellow with comprehensive education in the fundamentals of research design and methods, and to provide the skills necessary to succeed as an independently-funded scientist.

Led by the fellowship program directors, a selection committee will be formed that consists of members of the core fellowship faculty as well as key scientific representatives, depending on the candidate’s area of interest. The selection committee will have the responsibility of identifying and selecting applicants for entry into the program with fellows being selected primarily on the basis of their research potential with the overarching goal of recruiting individuals who will ultimately progress to independence as scientists. Only candidates who demonstrate a strong commitment to conducting scientific investigation as a primary component of their careers will be considered. In doing so, individuals successful in gaining entrance into the fellowship will have to identify a research focus area from one of the content areas within the department, as described in this application. The committee will emphasize individuals who have a high likelihood of success and as a future independently-funded scientist, and the need for structured career development support based on the individual’s past training experiences. While it is very difficult to predict future success, a solid record of past accomplishment (including a publication record) and an independently endorsed desire for an academic research career will be key elements in selecting fellows.

Applications for entry into the fellowship will be solicited locally and nationally from individuals within emergency medicine. A strategy for attracting candidates from outside our institution will occur through aggressive regional and national advertising. Fellow positions may also be advertised in Annals of Emergency Medicine, Academic Emergency Medicine, and one or more general medical journals with the goal of expanding the pool of potential candidates. The fellowship will also be advertised through SAEM’s fellowship directory. Furthermore, direct solicitation of applications, by personal letters and communications, from directors of training programs and departmental chairs will be performed.

Fellows will be required to hold a doctoral degree (i.e. M.D., D.O., or Ph.D.), and those with clinical-based doctoral degrees, will have to have completed an MD or DO-approved Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) residency training program. Therefore, fellows will include predominantly individuals emerging from residency training although early-stage faculty (i.e. within the first two years of a faculty appointment) may also be considered. In addition, non-clinical scientists (i.e. Ph.D.) entering the postdoctoral phase of their development will also be considered, although it is recognized that these individuals do not necessarily meet qualifications outlined by SAEM; if this scenario occurs, Drs. Haukoos and Ginde will request approval, on a case-by-case basis, from SAEM. Also, all fellows will register and maintain active membership with SAEM for the duration of the fellowship.