Career Outcomes of Graduates of R25E Short-Term Cancer Research Training Programs

Desmond, Reneé A.; Padilla, Luz A.; Daniel, Casey L.; Prickett, Charles T; Venkatesh, Raam; Brooks, C. Michael; Waterbor, John W.

doi:10.1007/s13187-014-0786-8

Cited by 9 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 12 publications

(13 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…By a combination of methods we obtained current contact information for 100% of the 499 CaRES alumni who participated in the program in 1999–2013; and we received complete tracking questionnaire data from 481 (96.4%) of these individuals [22]. Three-quarters of the successful contacts were made by email, and the remainder made by telephone.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An Evaluation Methodology for Longitudinal Studies of Short-Term Cancer Research Training Programs

et al. 2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The need to familiarize medical students and graduate health professional students with research training opportunities that cultivate the appeal of research careers is vital to the future of research. Comprehensive evaluation of a cancer research training program can be achieved through longitudinal tracking of program alumni to assess the program’s impact on each participant’s career path and professional achievements. With advances in technology and smarter means of communication, effective ways to track alumni have changed. In order to collect data on the career outcomes and achievements of nearly 500 short-term cancer research training program alumni from 1999–2013, we sought to contact each alumnus to request completion of a survey instrument online, or by means of a telephone interview. The effectiveness of each contact method that we used was quantified according to ease of use and time required. The most reliable source of contact information for tracking alumni from the early years of the program was previous tracking results; and for alumni from the later years, the most important source of contact information was university alumni records that provided email addresses and telephone numbers. Personal contacts with former preceptors were sometimes helpful, as were generic search engines and people search engines. Social networking was of little value for most searches. Using information from two or more sources in combination was most effective in tracking alumni. These results provide insights and tools for other research training programs that wish to track their alumni for long-term program evaluation.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second goal was to collect data on career outcomes (most important, engagement in cancer research) from these alumni in order to assess our program’s effectiveness in motivating students to engage in cancer research. The outcome data we collected are presented in a separate publication [22]. …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Evaluation Methodology for Longitudinal Studies of Short-Term Cancer Research Training Programs

et al. 2014

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…These goals might be as fundamental as providing students an opportunity to practice research skills to as specific as generating interest in becoming a palliative care researcher [27, 37]. Successful implementation of short-term impact surveys and longitudinal tracking surveys have been modeled by National Cancer Institute funded short-term cancer research training programs [40]. Our results suggest that most programs in Canada do not track resultant student publications nor do they follow-up with students after program completion.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exploring medically-related Canadian summer student research programs: a National Cross-sectional Survey Study

2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background Summer student research programs (SSRPs) serve to generate student interest in research and a clinician-scientist career path. This study sought to understand the composition of existing medically-related Canadian SSRPs, describe the current selection, education and evaluation practices and highlight opportunities for improvement. Methods A cross-sectional survey study among English-language-based medically-related Canadian SSRPs for undergraduate and medical students was conducted. Programs were systematically identified through academic and/or institutional websites. The survey, administered between June–August 2016, collected information on program demographics, competition, selection, student experience, and program self-evaluation. Results Forty-six of 91 (50.5%) identified programs responded. These SSRPs collectively offered 1842 positions with a mean 3.76 applicants per placement. Most programs (78.3%, n = 36/46) required students to independently secure a research supervisor. A formal curriculum existed among 61.4% ( n = 27/44) of programs. Few programs (5.9%, n = 2/34) offered an integrated clinical observership. Regarding evaluation, 11.4% ( n = 5/44) of programs tracked subsequent research productivity and 27.5% ( n = 11/40) conducted long-term impact assessments. Conclusions Canadian SSRPs are highly competitive with the responsibility of selection primarily with the individual research supervisor rather than a centralized committee. Most programs offered students opportunities to develop both research and communication skills. Presently, the majority of programs do not have a sufficient evaluation component. These findings indicate that SSRPs may benefit from refinement of selection processes and more robust evaluation of their utility. To address this challenge, the authors describe a logic model that provides a set of core outcomes which can be applied as a framework to guide program evaluation of SSRPs. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12909-019-1577-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

show abstract

“…In 1988 UAB’s Cancer Prevention and Control Training Program (CPCTP) for the support of a post-doctoral fellows, doctoral students, and a few summer students each year, was funded by NCI [12-14]. In 1999 UAB’s Cancer Research Experiences for Students (CaRES) program, a spinoff of the CPCTP for summer students only, was funded by NCI through its R25E program for short-term research projects [15-17]. The CaRES program’s primary goal is to introduce or re-introduce eligible students to cancer research and to motivate them to consider cancer research careers.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Automated Literature Searches for Longitudinal Tracking of Cancer Research Training Program Graduates

et al. 2016

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A key outcome measure of cancer research training programs is the number of cancer-related peer-reviewed publications after training. Because program graduates do not routinely report their publications, staff must periodically conduct electronic literature searches on each graduate. The purpose of this study is to compare findings of an innovative computer-based automated search program versus repeated manual literature searches to identify post-training peer-reviewed publications. In late 2014, manual searches for publications by former R25 students identified 232 cancer-related articles published by 112 of 543 program graduates. In 2016, a research assistant was instructed in performing Scopus literature searches for comparison with individual PubMed searches on our 543 program graduates. Through 2014, Scopus found 304 cancer publications, 220 of that had been retrieved manually plus an additional 84 papers. However, Scopus missed 12 publications found manually. Together, both methods found 316 publications. The automated method found 96.2 % of the 316 publications while individual searches found only 73.4 %. An automated search method such as using the Scopus database is a key tool for conducting comprehensive literature searches, but it must be supplemented with periodic manual searches to find the initial publications of program graduates. A time-saving feature of Scopus is the periodic automatic alerts of new publications. Although a training period is needed and initial costs can be high, an automated search method is worthwhile due to its high sensitivity and efficiency in the long term.

show abstract

Career Outcomes of Graduates of R25E Short-Term Cancer Research Training Programs

Cited by 9 publications

References 12 publications

An Evaluation Methodology for Longitudinal Studies of Short-Term Cancer Research Training Programs

An Evaluation Methodology for Longitudinal Studies of Short-Term Cancer Research Training Programs

Exploring medically-related Canadian summer student research programs: a National Cross-sectional Survey Study

Automated Literature Searches for Longitudinal Tracking of Cancer Research Training Program Graduates

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About