SCIT Courses

The SCIT program requires that trainees take the equivalent of at least one full-quarter course load over the duration of the two-year program. See Summary of Course Requirements. From among the many relevant courses offered at Stanford, trainees select “core” courses in the Focus Areas listed in the Example Course List as follows - at least: two clinical/cancer sciences, two courses in the basic imaging sciences, one course in biostatistics, and one course in medical ethics (“Responsible Conduct of Research” MED 255), attendance at 4 or more Tumor Boards (arrange with mentor). In addition to the core courses, all individuals planning to carry out human or animal research must be named on separate IRBs held by their mentors and are required by Stanford University to complete the relevant on-line courses that are listed at the bottom the Summary of Course Requirements table.

With the exception of MED 255, which all postdoctoral trainees at Stanford are required to take, individual core requirements can be waived if the trainee can demonstrate equivalent course work. The trainee/mentors jointly select courses for relevance to the chosen research project and the trainee’s own background. Trainees can even select from the growing collection of on-line courses (see below). The Example Course List is a partial list of courses that are available to satisfy core requirements; more than the minimum may be taken upon agreement of the trainee/mentors. Although the List presents many options for our trainees to consider, trainees are not limited to these entries alone. Stanford offers many other courses and, at the discretion of the mentors, trainees may make substitutions from outside this list.

Radiology course offerings now include, e.g., Advanced Ultrasound Imaging, Probes and Applications for Multimodality Imaging of Living Subjects and Computational Methods for Biomedical Image Analysis and Interpretation. While there is still an exceptional foundation of core technical courses available in our Electrical Engineering Department, new, more esoteric topics have been added (e.g., RF Pulse Design, NanoBio Technology). Furthermore, entirely new departments have been added with exceptional course offerings (e.g., Biomedical Data Sciences offers a course in Biostatistics and another on Deep Learning in Genomics and Biomedicine). There is also a substantially expanded menu of courses in Health Research and Policy, e.g., Essentials of Clinical Research at Stanford, that are especially suited toward bringing trainees up to date in developing and performing repeatable, reproducible and statistically valid research.

Another option that can be arranged after careful discussion with mentors, and with the permission of the PDs, is for trainees to enroll in suitable on-line coursework. One of the most vibrant communities of online learning excellence, Coursera, a Stanford spin-off, provides many options in topics such as machine learning and biomedical data science.

For enrichment, we encourage our trainees to attend the Stanford Cancer Institute’s Comprehensive Cancer Research Training Program, featuring daily plenary sessions on general topics followed by half-day sessions on two scientific themes, each featuring three to four presentations.

Trainees will also be encouraged to participate in career development courses (See Sample Course Offerings for Career Development Table).