Four-Week Sessions Offered Monthly Except June and December
NOTE: This rotation is offered in Baltimore, MD
Prerequisite: Completion of third-year medical school clerkships
Rotation Coordinator:
Jamie Hartnett
Medical Director:
Stephanie Weiss, MD, PhD
Rotation Description
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Intramural Research Program (IRP) offers qualified students a four-week translational clinical research elective in Addiction Medicine/Psychiatry at its Bayview campus in Baltimore, Maryland. This elective includes clinical research exposure opportunities such as involvement in screening history and physicals, translational experimental medicine procedures and studies, magnetic resonance imaging and brain neuromodulation activities, behavioral evaluations and psychosocial testing, clinical monitoring and biological specimen testing, and other translational and clinical research activities. Medical Students will engage in addiction translational and clinical research protocols by working with participants in study sessions involving biological sampling, pharmacological and/or behavioral experiments, and psychosocial tasks. Opportunities also exist for selected and highly motivated students to engage in a small research project involving a secondary data analysis of existing addiction research data mentored by clinicians and researchers at the NIDA IRP.
This rotation will introduce medical students to the principles of human research and provide them with the opportunity to interact with our diverse multidisciplinary team. The student is expected to be an integral part of the NIDA IRP, including participation in multidisciplinary clinical rounds, addiction grand rounds, and other educational, teaching, clinical, and research activities. Students will also have access to the outstanding electronic library resources available at NIH, allowing them to review existing literature related to scientific and medical issues pertinent to their elective. All students will be expected to give a presentation on a relevant clinical issue during their elective rotation. At the end of the elective, students will evaluate the elective and receive constructive feedback on their performance.
Rotation Objectives
- Gain experience in providing clinical support within a translational addiction human trials research setting.
- Practice using an effective, non-judgmental approach to risk assessment and risk reduction counseling in the addiction population
- Effectively communicate medical information to patients and the medical and research teams
- Develop a basic understanding of the neuroscience of addiction and the biopsychosocial approach to its treatment
Selection of Applicants
This elective rotation can accommodate one student per month (up to 10 students per year).
Attending Staff
- Jean Lud Cadet, MD
- Lisa Farinelli, PhD, MBA, RN
- Marianne Garrett, PA-C
- John Hubbard, PA-C
- Lorenzo Leggio, MD, PhD
- Kathy Lightfoot, PA-C
- Betty Jo Salmeron, MD
- Stephanie Weiss, MD, PhD
For more information, visit NIDA's webpage.