Inside Duke Medicine

MSTP students retreat to the beach for fellowship & career development

Students and faculty from the Medical Scientist Training Program traveled to Wrightsville Beach this past weekend for the first MSTP Retreat. It was, said M.D./Ph.D. student Erik Knelson, a chance to get to know one another better and to discuss their scientific and general career development.

“My classmates span almost a decade in age range and are normally dispersed throughout campus in various labs and on clinical rotations,” said Knelson. “The chance to come together as a group free from the distractions and responsibilities found on campus is truly critical to maintaining solidarity, focusing our collective energy on our research and sharing wisdom with our fellow students.”

MSTP Director Chris Kontos agreed.

“From my perspective and that of all the students I spoke with during and after the event, I think it’s safe to say the retreat was a rousing success,” said Kontos. “I think everyone, students and leadership alike, came away with a renewed sense of commitment to the outstanding MSTP community that we have here at Duke.”

Kontos was appointed director in March 2009 and charged with pumping new energy into the program, in which 65 students earn both M.D. and Ph.D. degrees over seven to eight years. Most continue on with postgraduate clinical training before launching careers in academic medicine. In more than 40 years since the NIH began funding the MSTP, many graduates have become leaders at the most exciting frontiers of modern biomedical science.

“Our goal is to recruit students who become outstanding physician-scientists, and mentoring is one of the most important parts of developing a career,” said Kontos. The retreat is just the latest example of how Duke faculty provide that mentoring, giving the MSTP students ample exposure to the depth and breadth of scientific investigation at Duke.

Every Thursday, lunchtime discussions with faculty from across the biomedical sciences provide younger students with introductions to various fields of research. Seventh-year student Carolyn Sangokoya, who wants to be a surgeon-scientist, said these lunches helped her identify the faculty and labs doing clinically focused research. She chose to work in the genomics lab of Ashely Chi, M.D., Ph.D.

A monthly dinner is an opportunity to hear from an investigator about his or her research and career path. In March, David Kirsch, M.D., Ph.D., explained how he balances work with family time and how his clinical care for cancer patients informs his research that uses genetic knowledge to model human cancer in the mouse for studying the initiation, progression, and metastasis of cancer.

“Do your post-doc training as long as necessary so that you can develop a model that you can take with you,” Kirsch advised the students, using his own murine model of soft-tissue sarcomas as an example.

Student Erik Knelson was at that off-campus dinner. He was quick to express his gratitude for the support he’s gotten in the program from the School faculty and administrators. He also thanked the American taxpayers who fund his education through grants from the NIH that support MD/PhD programs like the MSTP.

Every April, MSTP students organize the annual MSTP Forum. That day-long event features a keynote speaker – this year it was Charles Czeisler, M.D., Ph.D., senior physician in the division of sleep medicine at Harvard – and student research presentations and poster sessions.

The retreat, too, is meant to be an annual affair.

“The highlight for me was presenting my own research on neuroblastoma for the first time before a small group of my peers, shortly before hearing a talk by Dean Nancy Andrews,” said Knelson. Andrews’s success as a pediatric hematologist/oncologist and physician scientist offers an example of a career path he hopes to pursue.

"The retreat was a huge success, and I was delighted to be able to attend,” said Andrews. “The Duke MSTP represents the best of what we are – its students build bridges between clinical medicine and all aspects of biomedical research as they become physician-scientist leaders of the future. I am very proud of them, and of the outstanding job that Chris Kontos is doing as MSTP director."

Kontos, in turn, credits the support the program gets from Andrews, who graduated from, and subsequently led, the Harvard MSTP. Chancellor Victor Dzau, M.D., and the Scientific Advisory Committee are also supporters of the MSTP, and provided the funds for the retreat at the beach.

“MSTP has benefited tremendously from the leadership and energy of Chris Kontos and from the support of Dean Andrews and Chancellor Dzau,” said Dona Chikaraishi, Ph.D., associate dean for biomedical graduate education and leadership services. "Most importantly, its students have engendered a collegial and cohesive culture that has been further enhanced by the MSTP retreat."

• See more photos from the retreat, taken by MSTP student Ilia Shadrin.
• Read about 2010 MSTP graduate Arwen Long, M.D., Ph.D. and how she intends to use her clinical and research training.