Educational Opportunities

Certificate Program in International Health for resident physicians at Stanford University Medical Center. We are pleased to offer this lecture series, sponsored through the Graduate Medical Education Office, as an introductory course for medical professionals seeking formal instruction in international health care systems, basic tropical diseases, and approaches to volunteering abroad. Lectures will be given by Bay Area leaders with diverse experiences in international health and disease.

Master of Science, Graduate Program in Epidemiology/Master’s program in Epidemiology, which is oriented towards physicians anticipating academic careers in clinical research.  The program fits in well with the School of Medicine emphasis on translational research.

It is a small program, housed within the Department of Health Research and Policy.  From our perspective, the ideal candidate is in the fellowship stage of his or her training, or perhaps is already a junior faculty member.  The core of the program is a three quarter biostatistical sequence and a three quarter sequence in epidemiological and clinical trial methods.  Most students complete the 45 unit program in six quarters, but it is quite feasible to complete all requirements over a four quarter period of time.

Many students maintain a limited clinical load while taking course requirements (e.g., a weekly clinic).  In-patient attending duties, if required, are best done during the summer months.  Applicants are responsible for Stanford tuition, which in the past has come from training grants, K-awards, discretionary funds within the applicant’s home department, or simply out-of-pocket.

** There is funding for 2 positions in the new Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Education and Research (SCCTER)** http://med.stanford.edu/epidemiology

Biomedical Informatics
The Biomedical Informatics (BMI) program focuses on training students in biomedical informatics research:  the development  and application of new methods for acquiring, representing, retrieving  and analyzing  biomedical data and  knowledge.  We are consistently ranked in the top 1 or 2 of programs in this field, and offer MS and PhD degrees. The program is described in more detail at http://bmi.stanford.edu/

In the past, we have had ad hoc arrangements with fellows in oncology, infectious disease and cardiology--all with good results (i.e. high quality papers, and placement in high impact positions).  Projects can range from the molecular level (analysis of high-throughput genomic, proteomic, metabolomic, transcriptomic data) to the clinical level (e.g., methods for mining patient records, decision analytic approaches to biomarkers) and imaging (e.g. automated diagnosis, molecular imaging algorithms).

We are interested in training more MDs who have an interest in informatics, and who would like to consider an MS degree, PhD degree or simply post-MD research fellowships in informatics.  We would be happy to  evaluate applications out of our normal graduate admissions season (deadline: Dec 2, decisions:  early March), because we recognize that clinical fellowships are decided on a different timeline.

We have an NIH training grant funding for 1-3 post-doctoral (post-MD or post-PhD) trainees each year, usually for 2 years if they are research fellowships or MS candidates.  We are one of the few funded fellowships at Stanford that enables fellows to pursue a PhD during their fellowships, and so we can offer 3-4 years if they are accepted into our PhD program.  Our program requires that they have shown some interest and aptitude for informatics, computer programming, mathematics, and statistics.   We can only fund them during the time that they are doing either class work or informatics research or both.