Undergraduate Training Programs

A structured undergraduate mentorship based training program is ongoing at St. John’s Medical College, Bangalore. It is conducted in collaboration with the St John’s Research Society. Participants: Undergraduate medical students. Objective: To train undergraduate medical students in the principles of research methods through mentorship and a research project. Methods: The unique feature of the program is learning research by hands-on experience: Over a ten month period the students undertake a research project as the principal investigator. A faculty mentor facilitates the process. The student generate a research question, applies for ethics clearance from the institutional ethics review board and responds to objections if any and presents the project proposal to a scientific committee. Following this, a grant of up to Rs.10,000/- is provided to conduct the project. Since 2009, 4 batches with 39 students have completed the program. Four published in PubMed indexed journals, seven obtained awards for best undergraduate research and nine presented in national conferences. Two were awarded the Indian Council of Medical Research student fellowship. The program is now in its 6th year with 10 students in the current batch. A similar mentorship program was initiated at MGIMS, Sevagram, in January 2009. Sixteen students participated in the first cycle & seventeen students participated in the second cycle. All of these projects have been completed.