Patricia Flynn, M.D., senior vice president and medical director of Quality and Patient Care at St. Jude, is co-director of the Master of Science in Clinical Investigations degree program.
As the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences welcomes its fourth cohort of Ph.D.-seeking students, the school is also unveiling a Master of Science in Clinical Investigations degree program.
The new degree program is designed to attract junior clinicians and early-career faculty members interested in advancing their understanding of the development, implementation, conduct and oversight of clinical investigation. The program’s goal is to provide a transformative education that will create a cadre of health professionals who are adept at designing, conducting and reporting clinical investigations that further human health.
Victor Santana, M.D., Charles G. Pratt Chair in Solid Tumor Research at St. Jude, is co-director of the new Master of Science in Clinical Investigations department at the hospital’s Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.
“The impetus for originally developing the Graduate School at St. Jude was to academically leverage three major strengths of the hospital: basic research, global medicine and clinical research,” said Stephen White, DPhil, president and dean of the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. “Having developed the Ph.D. and Global Master’s programs, we complete our triad with the newly approved Clinical Investigations Master’s Program.”
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences launched the online Master of Science in Global Child Health program in collaboration with the Department of Global Pediatric Medicine in 2019.
The Master of Science in Clinical Investigations will be directed by Patricia Flynn, M.D., senior vice president and medical director of Quality and Patient Care at St. Jude, and Victor Santana, M.D., who holds the Charles G. Pratt Chair in Solid Tumor Research at St. Jude. The program will launch with a class of six to eight trainees.
Flynn sees the benefits of the new program based on her personal experience.
“As someone who did my clinical training at St. Jude and also earned a formal degree from a different institution, I recognized what an asset it would be for trainees to have both clinical and clinical investigation in one place, concentrating on pediatric diseases,” Flynn said. “At the same time, they’ll be taught and mentored by experts in pediatric clinical investigation.”
The Master of Science in Clinical Investigations program will run for two years through fall and spring semesters with 39 credit hours. Trainees will take most of their coursework in the first year and focus on elective coursework and independent research in the second year.
The Master of Science in Clinical Investigations will give graduates of the program training and knowledge they can take to other institutions, like the other degree programs of the Graduate School are designed to do.
“Advances in the cures of catastrophic diseases in children, including cancer, have been realized through careful and systematic clinical research, a foundational strength of St. Jude,” Santana said. St. Jude conducts more clinical trials for pediatric cancer than any other U.S. children’s hospital. “Having a graduate program in clinical investigations research further advances St. Jude as a leader in the field and develops new leaders to carry the mission forward.”
St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
The St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences was founded in 2015 to educate the next generation of researchers and health care professionals at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. By training researchers to probe the molecular basis of disease and therapy, medical practitioners to conduct clinical and translational research, and health professionals to improve health care systems worldwide, the Graduate School is committed to the advancement of global heath and the discovery of cures for pediatric catastrophic diseases. The Graduate School has 46 students enrolled in the Biomedical Sciences doctoral program, 20 students in the Global Child Health master’s program, and is currently recruiting students for the new Clinical Investigations master’s program. To learn more, visit www.stjude.org/graduate-school or follow the Graduate School on social media at @StJudeGraduate (Twitter) and @StJudeGradSchool (Facebook, Instagram).
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is leading the way the world understands, treats and cures childhood cancer and other life-threatening diseases. It is the only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center devoted solely to children. Treatments developed at St. Jude have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to 80% since the hospital opened more than 50 years ago. St. Jude freely shares the breakthroughs it makes, and every child saved at St. Jude means doctors and scientists worldwide can use that knowledge to save thousands more children. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing and food — because all a family should worry about is helping their child live. To learn more, visit stjude.org or follow St. Jude on social media at @stjuderesearch.