Clinician Scientist Pathway for Internal Medicine Trainees-Research Track

NRMP#1113140C1

W. Robert Taylor, MD, PhD

Program Director

Research Track

Associate Professor of Medicine

Dr. Taylor received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He obtained his training in Internal Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital. After completing his training in Cardiology at Emory University School of Medicine, he joined the faculty of the Department of Medicine. He is currently a Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at Emory University School of Medicine.

One of the major missions of Emory’s Internal Medicine training programs is to train the future leaders in academic Medicine.  To further facilitate our efforts to meet this goal, we have established a Clinician Scientist Pathway for Internal Medicine trainees.  This program is an ABIM approved pathway geared towards providing protected research training for Internal Medicine residents.  Trainees participating in this pathway must be prospectively identified and registered with the ABIM. 

The most common use of this pathway involves combined Internal Medicine and subspecialty training.  The exact time requirements vary depending on the subspecialty.  The net result is that the 3rd year of IM training is replaced by a year of research that is generally contiguous with research training in the subspecialty.  For example, in a subspecialty requiring 4 years of training, there are two years of general IM training, followed by 3 years of research and 2 years of clinical training.  The trainee does not “save” any time.  Instead, the program allows them the opportunity to focus on research training for an extended period while still meeting all of the clinical requirements for Board eligibility in Internal Medicine and the selected subspecialty. 

Residents with an interest in academic General Internal Medicine training may also pursue this pathway for training..  These individuals do not obtain subspecialty training but rather complete research training without any additional clinical subspecialty training.  The research training is most commonly in the broad area of clinical/patient based research but this is not a limitation.  The minimal time requirement for this option is 5 years.  This is composed of 2 years of general Internal Medicine training followed by 3 years of research training.

Applicants to the Clinician Scientist pathway will be asked to identify the areas of subspecialty training that they are interested in pursuing.  If selected for an interview, applicants will have the opportunity to meet with a representative from that subspecialty as well as other members of the faculty to discuss both clinical and research training.

(lunch with subspecialty mentors)  

The details of the ABIM program for the Clinician Scientist pathway are detailed on the ABIM website at http://www.abim.org/cert/respath_pp.shtm.  If you have any specific questions, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. W. Robert Taylor, Program Director, Clinician Scientist Pathway at Emory.

Links to current research projects:

School of Medicine Office of Research

Cardiology

Digestive Diseases

Endocrinology

Geriatrics

Infectious Diseases

Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine

Nephrology

Rheumatology