$3.5 million grant funds med research

Dan Judge will get the opportunity to publish several papers this year, while his fellow medical students may not. As a recipient of a grant from the Four Schools Physician Scientist Program in Internal Medicine, the fourth-year Medical School student will be able to do research that will put him ahead of his classmates when he graduates. "It's an opportunity to do research in medical school," Judge said. "It would be difficult to publish during medical school [otherwise]." The program, which is funded with $3.5 million from the Lucille Markey Charitable Trust, includes the University, Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Washington universities and supports selected medical students for a year of research. The program was designed for students at any of the four universities who are interested in careers in academic medicine and has an extensive application process. The students are selected at the end of their third year. The selection process is similar to that of medical school admissions. There is an application and an interview process. Selected students are given tours of all four facilities and are then instructed to select their top choices. Acceptance into the program eliminates the search for a residency program for graduating medical students because they are offered positions at one of the four universities. "It guarantees residency positions," Judge said. Since medical school can be an extremely stressful time, many students and faculty members said a year off can be beneficial. For this reason, many feel that this program is a pleasant change. "[The selected students] spend the year on a sabbatical away from the pressures of medical school," said Med School Vice Dean for Education Fred Burg. Even though this program requires students to remain in med school for an extra year, several University administrators and students said it is worth it. "Seeing how fast you can finish [school] should never be one of your goals," Burg said. "Why should medical school be only four years, especially when it is subsidized?" Relations among the four schools have been strengthened through the program as well. "It helps set up ties among all four schools," Judge said.

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