Detailed description of training programs (Winter and Spring quarter).
The program’s strategy is to place graduate students within one of eleven medical groups that conduct the ongoing diagnosis and treatment of various types of human disease related to the graduate students area of thesis research.  These medical groups reside within the Departments of Medicine, Neurosciences, and Pediatrics.  Each medical group has devised a “Medical Specialty Training Program” (MSP) that offers graduate students 10 to 12 weeks of training approaching full-time (see Table 1, below. Complete description of each program is hyperlinked to the MSP topic title). The minimal training consists of autumn quarter preparatory activities followed byclinical activities (the specific MSP) in the either the Winter or Spring quarter. Autumn preparatory activities consist of a directed self-study course in histology and histopatology, and attendance of 2 hours/week of Grand Rounds and patient case conferences (consult autumn quarter preparatory activities section for detailed activities related to each MSP). The purpose of these activities is to establish the students knowledge of histopathology, their understanding of the open research questions that need to be addressed in this arena, their undertanding of treatment issues, and their familiarity with the faculty who they will interact with during their MSP. Courses described in post-MSP training are optional.

Specific training Goals: Each medical specialty program provides students with:
1.   A clear delineation of common pathologies that arise from both known and unknown molecular mechanisms.
2.   A clear understanding of the primary cause of a disease, as well as its secondary effects and their accompanying biochemical mechanisms.
3.   An accurate knowledge of tests used to diagnose disease, and whether these assays are based on changes directly caused by the pathogenesis mechanism,
4.   An accurate understanding of current therapeutics used to treat disease, their efficiency, and whether they are molecularly-based,
5.   An understanding of the side-effects of current therapies and whether these side-effects can be eliminated by molecular therapeutics,
6.   A recognition of therapeutics that are suboptimal, and whether new molecularly-based therapeutics could be developed,
7.   An understanding of how molecular discoveries in basic research become effective therapeutics through the process of translational and clinical research.