Our program will have two tracks. One is a 7-year research residency track, which combines 5 year clinical training in otolaryngology – head and neck surgery with 2 years of research training. The second is a 2-year post-residency track, which will be used to provide a research experience for those individuals that desire an extended research experience after residency training. Both tracks are post-doctoral fellowships for otolaryngology residents, with the main difference being that the first track has the research block in the middle of residency training and the second track has the research block after residency has been completed.  Both tracks provide guidance on how to balance research and clinical responsibilities in order to prepare the trainees to become independent physician-scientists.

Many of the trainees will not only work with the program faculty, but also with additional Stanford faculty from other departments within and outside the School of Medicine. This offers the opportunity for a diverse training experience that permits trainees to access the excellent research opportunities that exists throughout the Stanford University faculty. A distinctive feature of this training program is the emphasis on providing mentorship throughout their entire combined clinical-research training period.

Our program also contains a structured didactic program, multiple journal clubs, a weekly seminar series, and a monthly visiting basic science lectureship series. In addition, there are a wide range of additional training opportunities at Stanford specifically designed for post-doctoral fellows, such as training in the responsible conduct of research, statistical analysis, how to write a scientific paper, grantsmanship, negotiating for your first position, and a wide range of classes available for auditing, etc. Thus, trainees in this program will have a unique opportunity to build a career as clinician-scientists in a strongly-supportive environment that is exuberantly pushing the boundaries of research and clinical training in otolaryngology.

We believe that a two-year research block is a critical, minimum period necessary to have the best chance at success with this career pathway. While every trainee is different and brings with them different strengths and weaknesses, we base this assertion upon the significant experience of the program faculty in training graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. An ideal approach is to combine clinical and research training to prepare future clinician-scientists, because a clinician-scientist must do both.

The core experience is two years of dedicated research time. We realize that training a clinician to think like a research scientist is not something that can be achieved simply with a “research block”. While most of the research experience must be held during the two-year period, our program will encourage continued participation in laboratory research meetings and basic science seminars after the trainee resumes clinical duties. In our experience, this is essential to sustain the individual’s commitment to research through the clinical years. Our goal is to prepare 1) the resident trainees to first enter a clinical fellowship (that includes basic science training) and subsequently take an academic position with dedicated research time, and 2) the post-residency trainees to either complete a clinical fellowship (either at Stanford or elsewhere) or directly move into an academic position with dedicated research time. Further research training would likely take place via the K08 or K23 mentored clinician-scientist award mechanisms.

Trainees in this program may choose their primary research mentors from the program faculty: Stefan Heller, Anthony Ricci, Alan Cheng, Mirna Mustapha, Nicolas Grillet, Peter Santa Maria, Jon-Paul Pepper, Elizabeth DiRenzo, Iram Ahmad.

Every member of our program faculty has multiple research collaborations. Trainees in this program may choose to be involved in these collaborations. Indeed, many of the best and most exciting projects require collaborators with significant differences in expertise, but which can be used synergistically to advance the field in a leap-frog step. Many of the trainees will be working closely with collaborators in addition to their Primary Research Mentor. In some cases, the collaborator may even be considered a co-mentor. This is beneficial because of the additional opportunities for learning it offers.

In addition to their primary research mentor, each trainee will select a secondary clinician-scientist mentor who is different than his/her primary research mentor. This person must be NIH-funded and run an independent lab, but not need be a member of the program faculty. Thus, this list of individuals within our department currently includes Alan Cheng, John Sunwoo, Eben Rosenthal, and Lloyd Minor. The goal of this secondary mentor is to provide individualized guidance for a successful career as a clinician-scientist in academic otolaryngology. An annual meeting between the trainee and the secondary mentor should take place, but of course more discussions can be held as needed.