ISP Process and Learning Objectives

The Independent Scholarly Project (ISP) is a longitudinal process that begins during M1, and is completed when the student participates and presents in a designated Student Research Day – often during the M4 year. Students can set their own timeline with regard to completion of their ISP requirement. In order to meet the ISP requirement, the student must:

• Identify a faculty mentor and a project.
• Complete and submit an ISP proposal for review.
• Respond to feedback in a timely manner and re submit the proposal  – if revisions are required.
• Upload the approved ISP proposal and the approval email to Canvas site.
• Work closely with a faculty mentor to complete their project.
• Register to participate and present at a Student Research Day.
• Prepare their presentation using required presentation template.
• Have the mentor complete the Mentor Evaluation Form.
• Submit an ISP Completion Form that includes an abstract and pertinent results from their work.
• Present their completed ISP at a Student Research Day before a team of faculty facilitators and student peers.

Learning Objectives

Through the longitudinal process and by the completion of the ISP, the student will:

1. Be able to think independently about a specific area of interest, and in collaboration with a faculty mentor, develop an appropriate research question.
2. Be able to generate a hypothesis and develop an appropriate methodology/study design for their Independent Scholarly Project (ISP) in collaboration with their mentor and research team.
3. Be able to perform a focused medical literature review in their topic of interest and apply it to their ISP.
4. Be able to collect and analyze data and generate an appropriate discussion of their results in collaboration with their mentor.
5. Expand skills in technical medical writing, oral presentation, and poster presentation/development.
6. Improve their understanding of the principles of translational and clinical research through the formulation of their ISP and by attending the Principles of Research in Medicine (PRIM) course during their M1 year.

The PRIM course teaches research fundamentals and focuses on the following:

• the significance of translational research as it applies to patient care (using a model of how a basic science finding can result in a novel treatment for a particular disease entity)
• how to identify and write a clinical vignette, clinical case series, and perform a retrospective chart review, Clinical Trials design and phases of drug development
• how to perform a focused medical literature review using resources provided by the research librarian staff at DML
• The importance of conducting ethical research and the protection of human subjects as it relates to interactions with and applications to the IRB
• Fundamentals of quantitative and qualitative research methodologies
• Understanding of the use of JMP software and applying statistical analysis
• Fundamentals of presenting work as an oral presentation or poster format