Student Value Domain Research
The Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine’s research value domain is incorporated throughout all four years of the medical school curriculum with the goal of developing scientist physicians. To train scientist physicians, the school’s curriculum immerses all students in the language, culture and practice of research.
All students are expected to conduct original, hypothesis-driven research of sufficient scope to span three-and-a-half years. Each student is allotted $1000/year in Years 2-4 for research supplies.
The school dedicates more than 1,200 hours of its curriculum to research
Year 1
Classroom-based course (biomedical research fundamentals, biostatistics, epidemiology, ethics)
Identify research mentor and project
Project proposal
3 weeks of fulltime research
Year 2
Minimum of 4.5 hours per week during each 6-week block
4 special studies weeks available after each exam week (assuming no remediation)
At least 8 weeks of full-time research during spring
Year 3
4 weeks of full-time research at some point during the academic years
Elective research time available
Year 4
2 weeks of full-time research at some point during the academic year
Medical Student Research Requirements
- Research proposal (oral and written) during spring of Year 1
- Research reports due at end of each Year 2 block
- Oral presentation during spring of Year 2
- Research rotation reports at end of Year 3 and Year 4 rotations
- Draft manuscript due in June of Year 3
- Final oral presentation in June of Year 3
- Submission of research abstract to a conference/meeting (travel funds available)
- Final manuscript due in February of Year 4
- Poster presentation at VTCSOM Student Research Symposium (spring of Year 4)
Medical Student Research Success
Publications with VTCSOM medical students
Presentations at regional, national, and international meetings
*From 2014-21, based on eight graduating classes with a total of 318 graduates.