AOC Neuroscience:
Being a Mentor
Topic
Overview
Contract/Expectations
Scholarly Project
Other duties/benefits
Page
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Overview
Thank you for your interest in being a faculty mentor to a medical student in the AOC
Neuroscience!!! This is a valuable role, with important responsibilities, but the goal of faculty
mentorship is to create a productive relationship that benefits both the mentor and the mentee
educationally, interpersonally, and professionally.
The mentor’s role in the AOC-N is to help the student tie together the disparate parts of the
experience—clinical, research, teaching—into a deep and meaningful whole. We want the
students to develop independent, analytical thinking skills; a keen awareness of current issues in
our field and what the future might hold; a love for our discipline; and an understanding of how
scholarly activity proceeds in medical science. The AOC-N is set up to encourage students to
pursue direct, experiential learning activities that we hope will play a formative role in their
future careers and endeavors. The mentor’s role is to help them along this road.
To understand what this means in practice, it’s worth just summarizing the specific parts of the
AOC-N program: what the students are expected to do, the timeline for activities, and the
overall goals of the program.
Summary
An AOC is designed to augment the existing curriculum in order to provide students with an additional
academic experience that will enhance their physician training. AOC-N will offer students a longitudinal
educational experience centered on treating patients with neurological and behavioral disorders.
Furthermore, it will make available an area of particular research interest to our students. Like other
AOCs, this four-year program will result in the student being awarded a certificate of completion by the
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine (UPSOM) reading “Area of Concentration – Neuroscience”.
Goals
Through the addition of a neuroscience AOC to the curriculum students will have the opportunity to
participate in the long-term treatment of patients with disabling neurological and behavior conditions. The
student’s clinical interest will form the impetus for a scholarly project that will expose students to quality
research efforts. Each student, under faculty supervision, will strive to meet the following goals.
A. Clinical Experience: Each student will choose a clinical area of interest within one of the following
domains; psychiatric disorders, neurological disease, or addictive behaviors.
1.
Understand and participate in the long-term clinical treatment as it would present in a variety of
physician settings.
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The student will be able to diagnose and treat common psychiatric, neurological, or addictive
disorders, using both biological and psychosocial interventions.
B. Scholarly Project: The students’ research experiences will be directly related to their clinical area of
interest.
1.
Understand the research methodologies used to produce the current state of knowledge in the
neurosciences.
Students will demonstrate the ability to think creatively and analytically through completion
of an independent, mentored, scholarly project of publication quality within the
neurosciences. This project will directly relate to their clinical experiences.
2.
Understand the role of collaboration when it comes to treatment and research undertakings within
the neurosciences, especially as it relates to translational research themes.
Students will collaborate with peers and mentors to form a collegial environment as they
undertake activities in the neuroscience AOC.
C. Humanistic Qualities: To further expand the student’s appreciation for the humanistic elements
accompanying patients with these disorders, the student will undertake activities to help him/her gain
appreciation for how these illnesses are viewed by family and society.
1.
Understand the cultural aspects associated with mental illness and patients afflicted with
neurological disease.
Students will have an in-depth understanding of at least one culture’s view on mental illness
or terminal neurological diseases and how people from that culture pursue treatment.
The mentor’s responsibilities will focus most directly on the Scholarly Project (SP), a
requirement of the PittMed curriculum, but hopefully the student’s interest in a particular topic
area will extend naturally to the clinical and the humanistic sides as well. For instance, a student
may have come to you because of an interest in neuroimaging and cognition in schizophrenia.
You may first help the student develop an SP (say, something on a working memory task and
prefrontal cortex imaging). But you also should be helping the student select and develop a
clinical experience that matches up with the research—say, joining you (or a colleague) in the
outpatient clinic one afternoon a month to see patients with schizophrenia. And ultimately,
helping the student identify a humanistic approach (for instance, encouraging the student to write
a two-page paper on the Somali immigrant patient with schizophrenia, and how the illness is
viewed in that culture).
The mentor-mentee relationship should be flexible and, for the most part, student driven. They
will first tell you what they want, need, and are interested in. And the mentor’s job is to help
them get it, or redirect them, or refine their plans to something that makes more sense.
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Contract/Expectations
A key part of that process is the creation of a Contract for Excellence.
With every educational experience it is important for both the Scholar and Mentor to understand what each
other expects from the experience. A yearly Contract of Excellence will outline expectations to assure all
parties stay on course throughout the mentoring process. All Scholars will review their Contracts of
Excellence with the AOC Director to assure plans are consistent with program goals.
Your student should create this document, with your review and approval.
To state clearly who does what when, we’ve created this short table:
Activity
Planning
Mentoring
Contract
Hypothesis
Research
Presentation
Clinical
Educational
Humanistic
AOC Director
Portfolio
Scholar
Mentor
Identify mentor and area of focus
within three months of entry into AOC
Meet regularly: at least monthly in the period leading up to and during
the research project, at least quarterly at other times
Completed in first year, revised at least annually thereafter, submitted
to AOC director after completion and revisions
Generate an independent hypothesis,
Assist with IRB approval
and a way to test it, by the end of MS2
Begin performing research by October
of MS3 year
Prepare a scholarly communication of
your project by end of MS4
Attend clinic, rounds, or other clinical Precept (or designate) clinical
experience on average for four hours
experience 4hr/mo, discuss
per month
during mentoring sessions
Attend monthly AOC-specific
sessions, as well as one additional
educational event per month (to be
recorded in the log)
Complete 2-page summary of project,
case, or perspective by end of MS4
Meet at entry and annually to review
contract, portfolio, and overall
progress
Specifics TBA but will need to
updated regularly to include evidence
of progress/activity
As you can see, the main time commitment on the part of the mentor will be the meetings with
the student on some regular basis. The frequency and length of those meetings is up to you and
your student, but the minimum expectations laid out above should give you a sense of what you
might aim for.
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Scholarly Project
The cornerstone of the AOC-N is the scholarly project (SP). The SP should ideally tie together
clinical and research interests, helping the student develop critical thinking skills essential for the
advancement of medical knowledge.
The general timeline for the SP is outlined below.
By the end of the MS1 year, AOC students should have:
 chosen a topic area for research (e.g., neuroimaging in schizophrenia)
 identified a mentor
 met with mentor to develop an annual “Contract for Clinical, Research and Scholarly Excellence” that
lays down specific tasks, expectations, and timeframes for the student and faculty member to work
towards
By the end of the MS2 year, AOC students should have:
 generated an independent hypothesis (e.g., “New-onset schizophrenia patients have smaller thalamic
size compared to controls”)
 laid out an approach to test the hypothesis
 met with mentor monthly
 updated the annual “Contract for Clinical, Research and Scholarly Excellence”
By the end of the MS3 year, AOC students should have:
 begun performing the research (ideally, by October)
 met with mentor regularly
 updated the annual “Contract for Clinical, Research and Scholarly Excellence”
By the end of the MS4 year, AOC students should have:
 collected and analyzed data
 met with mentor regularly
 updated the annual “Contract for Clinical, Research and Scholarly Excellence”
 prepared a scholarly communication (poster, article) summarizing the results
 presented at the AOC Poster Symposium and WPIC Research Day
Some students may enter the AOC later than the MS1 year, so their timelines will be different.
Identifying a mentor and choosing a topic area are closely related tasks. Some students may
come in to the AOC knowing that they want to work with a particular faculty member and will
develop the topic of interest later. Others may have an idea about topic area but need help
finding a mentor. The AOC Director and the Steering Committee will assist students in this
process.
Obviously, working on this project will be the major focus of the faculty mentoring
relationship, and faculty will help the student at all stages. Although the ideal situation would be
for the student to integrate research and clinical experiences with one mentor, some students may
request an exception—to have a clinical experience distinct from the SP, and/or to have separate
faculty mentors for clinical and research experiences. These exceptions would need approval
from the AOC Director and the Steering Committee.
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The key task in this process will be developing the specific SP proposal. Because our objective
for the SP is for students to learn research methodology, the SP must involve hypothesis testing
in some formal way. This approach is the traditional scientific method: asking an important
question about neuroscience, obtaining data to answer the question, and evaluating the data in the
context of current scientific knowledge and project limitations/strengths. Beyond that, students
will have a great deal of flexibility about what hypothesis they choose.
Good examples of SPs include:
Research Category Hypothesis
The abnormal movements of
Primary data
Huntington Disease improve when
collection
Secondary analysis
of existing data
Cochrane review
patients receive high-dose
levetiracetam.
Adolescents who abuse inhalants
are more likely to have ADHD
than the general population.
Interpersonal therapy (IPT) is
superior to cognitive behavior
therapy (CBT) in the treatment of
geriatric depression.
Poor examples of SPs include:
Research Category Hypothesis
No specific hypothesis
Case report
Case series with
literature review
Data
Recruit 20 HD patients from Movement
Disorders clinic and openly give the
levetiracetam 2000mg/dy x 6wks using a
chorea rating scale as outcome measure
Using a data set from a separate study
looking at psychiatric + substance
comorbidity, identify inhalant abusers
etc.
Consult Cochrane database to pull out all
available data from treatment trials,
using meta-analytic method to evaluate
outcomes.
Data
Case of dissociative fugue seen in
emergency room, with comorbid heroin
history that made diagnosis difficult
Five cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
presenting at UPMC over past few years,
with review of disorder from literature.
No specific hypothesis
The hypothesis is the essential element in what makes a good SP; the developing and testing of
the hypothesis is what the SP is all about.
When developing SP proposals, students should keep in mind the following principles,
formulated by Dr. Nina Schor and the SP team:
•
Significance. The student should make clear to the reader the rationale for the planned
project. If the aims of the project are achieved, how will scientific knowledge or clinical
practice be advanced or the next follow-on project be defined or facilitated?
•
Approach. The conceptual, clinical, or social framework, design, data gathering or
product production methods, and analytical or interpretive methods should be described
in enough detail to give the reader confidence that the student understands what he or she
will be doing, how he or she will interpret the outcomes or results, and that the project is
doable and will result in a usable or interpretable outcome.
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•
Independence. While it would be unreasonable (and oxymoronic) to expect a mentored
project to be performed entirely independently, and most projects proposed will derive
from and lead to other projects of the mentor or mentor’s team, it should be clear to and
attested by the mentor that the student wrote the abstract with only the critique and
guidance of the mentor. It is also important that the student understands the design of the
project, will execute the project him- or herself under the guidance of the mentor, and
will interpret the outcome, product, or result independently before discussing it with the
mentor.
•
Originality. It should be clear from the abstract what it is that is “original” about this
project. This could be, for example, the experiments, studies, or tangible products
themselves or the synthesis, interpretation, and analysis of previously published
information.
•
Mentor. It must be explicitly attested to that the mentor will be responsible in an active
and on-going way for the performance of and longitudinal involvement in the project by
the student. Furthermore, for studies that involve human or animal subjects, the mentor
must explicitly attest to the obtaining of IRB or IACUC approval, respectively, before the
student performs any of the proposed studies or project-related activities.
•
Context and Environment. The student must cite specific literature references
demonstrating conversance with the relevant literature in the area of the project. By
signing-off on the abstract, the mentor attests that his or her area of expertise and
experience and the venue proposed for performance of the project are appropriate to its
aims.
And for the final product…
•
Project Limitations, Alternative Approaches, and Future Directions. The student
should make it clear to the reader that he or she understands the limitations of the project
as it was conducted, the alternative approaches that might have been taken, and the future
directions that are suggested or made possible by the results or product presented.
The student, with the help of the faculty mentor, should fully formulate the research project by
the end of the MS2 year. Once articulated, the proposal should be sent to the AOC Director for
the approval or revision. The Steering Committee must approve all SPs in order for an AOC
certificate to be granted. Approval of completed SPs will occur only after students produce the
final communication of the work.
As mentor, you might also check out the SP resources on-line, which give some guidance on
what Pitt expects:
http://www.zone.medschool.pitt.edu/sites/scholarlyproject/default.aspx
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Other duties/benefits
Besides the SP and the clinical/humanistic experiences, students may come to you to process or
discuss educational activities. There are monthly AOC “core” seminars, and students are
expected to attend at least one other educational activity per month, in addition to the core
seminar. It would be very helpful for their development if the mentor could discuss these
activities, and/or direct them to ones that might be most pertinent or helpful. Some of these
seminars will involve research methodology, and within the Pitt curriculum students will also
receive formal teaching on how to conduct research (e.g., use of statistics, how to read the
literature, etc.). But students may know little about IRBs, or what happens at conferences, or
what to do when an experiment doesn’t work. So they will count on you for guidance and
support. And finally, they will be sharing their portfolios with you, which will contain details
about their SP, their clinical experiences, and their educational activities—for your review,
comment, and input.
What does the mentor get out of this relationship? You get the satisfaction of helping educate a
student, who may follow you into this specialty or field of study. You get a highly motivated
and skilled trainee who can help you pursue mutually interesting and important research projects.
You get someone who will challenge you to crystallize and synthesize what you do and how it’s
important—an invaluable help. And, if you’re lucky, you have the potential to get a long-term
friend, collaborator, or colleague who will add richness to your life and career.
So thanks again for your interest, and please contact me if you have any other questions about
mentorship in the AOC-N!
Jason Rosenstock, MD
Director, Medical Student Education (Psychiatry)
WPIC E505
rosenstockjb@upmc.edu
412-246-6495
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