Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 26, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
News & Reports
Feature research
ECAT-V: where clinical and research training meet The University of Edinburgh is currently inviting applications for a unique training programme intended to develop a new generation of veterinary researchers, who are able to conduct internationally competitive research while still being grounded in clinical practice. Modelled on the Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track (ECAT) programme for medical trainees, the ECAT-V programme will allow successful applicants to develop both their clinical and research skills. Here, David Argyle, head of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, and his medical colleagues, John Iredale, Andrew Jackson and Brian Walker, describe the initiative and explain why it is important schools have the pick of highly qualified and talented students, one would imagine there would be no shortage of highly motivated and able candidates engaged in research training. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that vets struggle to construct careers as clinician scientists, with those conducting the most competitive research often giving up clinical practice, and those remaining in clinical practice often conducting less competitive research. The Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest research charities, prioritises animal health equally with human health and has invested in research training for vets. However, less than 2 per cent of the trust’s PhD level Research Training Fellowships are awarded to vets. In 2007, the trust invested £10.7 million in fellowship schemes specifically for vets, but this has not been transformative, and the majority of trainees remain embedded within the
ECAT statistics n 30 appointees from 16 medical
David J. Argyle, Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Roslin Institute, John P. Iredale, MRC Centre for Inflammation Research, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Andrew P. Jackson, MRC Human Genetics Unit, Institute for Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Brian R. Walker, BHF Centre for Cardiovascular Science, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh e-mail: [email protected] 364 | Veterinary Record | October 19, 2013
specialties (five each year since 2008). n PhD projects in 10 research centres, four outside the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. n 95 publications from 45 person-years in programme, including Nature (two), Cell, PNAS (two), NEJM. n 97 per cent continuing in academic training posts.
What the trainees say n ‘ECAT has radically altered the course of my career for the better. It is impossible to quantify the benefit of having dedicated time, easy access to some of the best scientists in the
vet schools and arguably have not gained access to the most competitive biomedical research across the UK’s many excellent institutions.
Lessons from medical academia
Perhaps lessons can be learned from recent developments in medical academic training. For at least a decade, there has been a crisis in recruitment of medical academics, which has been particularly acute in the so-called ‘craft’ surgical disciplines, such as soft tissue surgery or emergency and critical care. Restructuring of clinical medical training in 2006 risked squeezing out the opportunities for research training. In response, academic posts have been created explicitly to enable parallel research and clinical training; these include predoctoral fellowships and postdoctoral clinical lectureships. Moreover, the Wellcome Trust again took the initiative by launching, in 2007, portfolio awards to
country, and encouragement to follow a more imaginative and unusual path.’ n ‘ECAT has given me a unique opportunity to move out of my research comfort zone and to undertake highquality meaningful scientific study within a world-class research facility.’
What the Wellcome Trust says n ‘The ECAT-V initiative represents an important shift in how institutions support the brightest veterinary graduates to explore research training opportunities and go on to build sustainable careers as veterinary clinician scientists.’ – John Williams, head of clinical activities, Wellcome Trust.
t
All veterinarians are trained to be research-aware, but there is a pressing need to develop the next generation of academic clinicians who are research-active and able to advance the veterinary medical discipline. In recent years, the profession has experienced significant criticism regarding the quality of veterinary research and the failure to attract and retain the most academically gifted individuals in animal research. This is against a backdrop of the central role that the profession plays in the British economy (ranging from patient care through to food security) and the contribution to international animal health and welfare, especially in the developing world. The future of veterinary medicine and animal health relies on a vibrant research community that fosters bright young trainees who can hone their skills to conduct internationally competitive research while simultaneously being grounded in clinical practice to frame the research questions that matter. Since vet
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 26, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
News & Reports ‘Standard’ veterinary specialist training Intercalated Graduation Completion of internship or residency, or two to three years BSc BVM&S general practice
ECAT advertised l Successful applicants leave practice post to join ECAT-V l Residency in relevant specialty available if required
PhD selection. Research exposure, technique carousel and mini-project 20% research 90-100% research
‘Graduation’ from ECAT-V with clinical specialist training completed and postdoctoral research underway 20% research, 80% clinical training
Checkpoints: Year 1 report, PhD graduation, etc
Option to take substantive period of postdoc training via intermediate fellowship
ECAT-V lectureship
t
FiG 1: Structure of ECAT-V clinical lectureships
UK institutions which provide funding for cohorts of PhD fellowships managed within the institutions. In Edinburgh, we exploited the opportunity of a PhD portfolio award from the Wellcome Trust to put in place a unique approach that combines clinical and academic training in the Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track (ECAT) programme. Following competitive interview, we have appointed five medical trainees per annum since 2008 to posts which guarantee a predoctoral year with mentored support to identify and develop high-quality research training opportunities, followed by a three-year full-time PhD fellowship funded by the Wellcome Trust, and then a postdoctoral clinical lectureship provided by the institution to maintain research momentum towards development as an independent investigator and application for an intermediate fellowship. ECAT posts have proved highly popular with medical trainees from ‘craft’ disciplines, who have grasped the opportunity to develop PhD projects within internationally competitive research centres across Edinburgh, often in groups where clinicians have not previously been trained. Similar schemes have been rolled out subsequently, notably the WCAT scheme in Wales, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly.
New opportunities for vets
Edinburgh has a unified College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine and a ‘one medicine’ philosophy that is blind to the traditional boundaries between disciplines. When the ECAT programme was renewed as one of four ongoing clinical PhD portfolio
programmes awarded by the Wellcome Trust in 2013, we decided to offer ECAT posts to vets as well as medics. Vets appointed to the scheme will benefit from, and contribute their different perspectives to, the peerto-peer support of more than 30 trainees currently on programme, the experienced mentorship of the programme directors, and clinical support from the Edinburgh vet school.
‘Successful candidates will have an unrivalled opportunity to develop their careers as clinician scientists and be placed in an excellent situation to apply for both intermediate fellowships and senior clinical fellowships, and ultimately substantive university-funded academic posts’ An outline of the ECAT-V scheme is shown in Fig 1. ECAT-V posts are designed to be flexible to the requirements of individual trainees, and combine parallel specialist clinical training with the opportunity to undertake a fully funded PhD and postdoctoral research in a supportive and scientifically stimulating environment. Specifically, the ECAT-V scheme will help to address two major areas of concern within the profession, those of research training for clinical academics and career development in the postdoctoral period. ECAT-V lecturers will be appointed as clinical lecturers within the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. During the first 12 months their time will be divided between 80 per cent clinical training (in
their chosen discipline within the veterinary school) and 20 per cent research time (to identify ideal PhD supervisors and develop a tailor-made PhD project). Years 2 to 4 will be dedicated to 100 per cent research towards a PhD; like ECAT medical lecturers, ECAT-V lecturers will base their PhD in one of the university’s major research centres where they will be exposed to the highest quality biomedical research. Following the completion of the PhD, ECAT-V lecturers will remain in post for up to three years of further parallel training in their clinical discipline (with completion of diploma/subspecialist qualifications as appropriate) with ongoing postdoctoral research. This postdoctoral period will be supported with dedicated research time to maintain momentum. Successful candidates will have an unrivalled opportunity to develop their careers as clinician scientists and be placed in an excellent situation to apply for both intermediate fellowships and senior clinical fellowships, and ultimately substantive university-funded academic posts. Clearly there are many ways to ‘skin the cat’ of clinical academic training, but our ambition is that, emboldened by the confidence of a longer term commitment to parallel research and clinical training, ECAT vets will make brave choices in obtaining rigorous state-of-the-art research training and emerge uniquely well-placed to be leaders in animal research for the next generation. n The ECAT-V programme is currently being advertised in Vet Record Careers (see p v of this print issue). More information is available at www.ecat.ed.ac.uk doi: 10.1136/vr.f6185 October 19, 2013 | Veterinary Record | 365
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 26, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
ECAT-V: where clinical and research training meet David J. Argyle, John P. Iredale, Andrew P. Jackson and Brian R. Walker Veterinary Record 2013 173: 364-365
doi: 10.1136/vr.f6185 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/173/15/364
These include:
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Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
News & Reports
Feature research
ECAT-V: where clinical and research training meet The University of Edinburgh is currently inviting applications for a unique training programme intended to develop a new generation of veterinary researchers, who are able to conduct internationally competitive research while still being grounded in clinical practice. Modelled on the Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track (ECAT) programme for medical trainees, the ECAT-V programme will allow successful applicants to develop both their clinical and research skills. Here, David Argyle, head of the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, and his medical colleagues, John Iredale, Andrew Jackson and Brian Walker, describe the initiative and explain why it is important schools have the pick of highly qualified and talented students, one would imagine there would be no shortage of highly motivated and able candidates engaged in research training. Unfortunately, the evidence suggests that vets struggle to construct careers as clinician scientists, with those conducting the most competitive research often giving up clinical practice, and those remaining in clinical practice often conducting less competitive research. The Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s largest research charities, prioritises animal health equally with human health and has invested in research training for vets. However, less than 2 per cent of the trust’s PhD level Research Training Fellowships are awarded to vets. In 2007, the trust invested £10.7 million in fellowship schemes specifically for vets, but this has not been transformative, and the majority of trainees remain embedded within the
ECAT statistics n 30 appointees from 16 medical
David J. Argyle, Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies, Roslin Institute, John P. Iredale, MRC Centre for Inflammation Research, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, Andrew P. Jackson, MRC Human Genetics Unit, Institute for Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Brian R. Walker, BHF Centre for Cardiovascular Science, Queen’s Medical Research Institute, College of Medicine & Veterinary Medicine, University of Edinburgh e-mail: [email protected] 364 | Veterinary Record | October 19, 2013
specialties (five each year since 2008). n PhD projects in 10 research centres, four outside the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. n 95 publications from 45 person-years in programme, including Nature (two), Cell, PNAS (two), NEJM. n 97 per cent continuing in academic training posts.
What the trainees say n ‘ECAT has radically altered the course of my career for the better. It is impossible to quantify the benefit of having dedicated time, easy access to some of the best scientists in the
vet schools and arguably have not gained access to the most competitive biomedical research across the UK’s many excellent institutions.
Lessons from medical academia
Perhaps lessons can be learned from recent developments in medical academic training. For at least a decade, there has been a crisis in recruitment of medical academics, which has been particularly acute in the so-called ‘craft’ surgical disciplines, such as soft tissue surgery or emergency and critical care. Restructuring of clinical medical training in 2006 risked squeezing out the opportunities for research training. In response, academic posts have been created explicitly to enable parallel research and clinical training; these include predoctoral fellowships and postdoctoral clinical lectureships. Moreover, the Wellcome Trust again took the initiative by launching, in 2007, portfolio awards to
country, and encouragement to follow a more imaginative and unusual path.’ n ‘ECAT has given me a unique opportunity to move out of my research comfort zone and to undertake highquality meaningful scientific study within a world-class research facility.’
What the Wellcome Trust says n ‘The ECAT-V initiative represents an important shift in how institutions support the brightest veterinary graduates to explore research training opportunities and go on to build sustainable careers as veterinary clinician scientists.’ – John Williams, head of clinical activities, Wellcome Trust.
t
All veterinarians are trained to be research-aware, but there is a pressing need to develop the next generation of academic clinicians who are research-active and able to advance the veterinary medical discipline. In recent years, the profession has experienced significant criticism regarding the quality of veterinary research and the failure to attract and retain the most academically gifted individuals in animal research. This is against a backdrop of the central role that the profession plays in the British economy (ranging from patient care through to food security) and the contribution to international animal health and welfare, especially in the developing world. The future of veterinary medicine and animal health relies on a vibrant research community that fosters bright young trainees who can hone their skills to conduct internationally competitive research while simultaneously being grounded in clinical practice to frame the research questions that matter. Since vet
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 26, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
News & Reports ‘Standard’ veterinary specialist training Intercalated Graduation Completion of internship or residency, or two to three years BSc BVM&S general practice
ECAT advertised l Successful applicants leave practice post to join ECAT-V l Residency in relevant specialty available if required
PhD selection. Research exposure, technique carousel and mini-project 20% research 90-100% research
‘Graduation’ from ECAT-V with clinical specialist training completed and postdoctoral research underway 20% research, 80% clinical training
Checkpoints: Year 1 report, PhD graduation, etc
Option to take substantive period of postdoc training via intermediate fellowship
ECAT-V lectureship
t
FiG 1: Structure of ECAT-V clinical lectureships
UK institutions which provide funding for cohorts of PhD fellowships managed within the institutions. In Edinburgh, we exploited the opportunity of a PhD portfolio award from the Wellcome Trust to put in place a unique approach that combines clinical and academic training in the Edinburgh Clinical Academic Track (ECAT) programme. Following competitive interview, we have appointed five medical trainees per annum since 2008 to posts which guarantee a predoctoral year with mentored support to identify and develop high-quality research training opportunities, followed by a three-year full-time PhD fellowship funded by the Wellcome Trust, and then a postdoctoral clinical lectureship provided by the institution to maintain research momentum towards development as an independent investigator and application for an intermediate fellowship. ECAT posts have proved highly popular with medical trainees from ‘craft’ disciplines, who have grasped the opportunity to develop PhD projects within internationally competitive research centres across Edinburgh, often in groups where clinicians have not previously been trained. Similar schemes have been rolled out subsequently, notably the WCAT scheme in Wales, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly.
New opportunities for vets
Edinburgh has a unified College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine and a ‘one medicine’ philosophy that is blind to the traditional boundaries between disciplines. When the ECAT programme was renewed as one of four ongoing clinical PhD portfolio
programmes awarded by the Wellcome Trust in 2013, we decided to offer ECAT posts to vets as well as medics. Vets appointed to the scheme will benefit from, and contribute their different perspectives to, the peerto-peer support of more than 30 trainees currently on programme, the experienced mentorship of the programme directors, and clinical support from the Edinburgh vet school.
‘Successful candidates will have an unrivalled opportunity to develop their careers as clinician scientists and be placed in an excellent situation to apply for both intermediate fellowships and senior clinical fellowships, and ultimately substantive university-funded academic posts’ An outline of the ECAT-V scheme is shown in Fig 1. ECAT-V posts are designed to be flexible to the requirements of individual trainees, and combine parallel specialist clinical training with the opportunity to undertake a fully funded PhD and postdoctoral research in a supportive and scientifically stimulating environment. Specifically, the ECAT-V scheme will help to address two major areas of concern within the profession, those of research training for clinical academics and career development in the postdoctoral period. ECAT-V lecturers will be appointed as clinical lecturers within the Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. During the first 12 months their time will be divided between 80 per cent clinical training (in
their chosen discipline within the veterinary school) and 20 per cent research time (to identify ideal PhD supervisors and develop a tailor-made PhD project). Years 2 to 4 will be dedicated to 100 per cent research towards a PhD; like ECAT medical lecturers, ECAT-V lecturers will base their PhD in one of the university’s major research centres where they will be exposed to the highest quality biomedical research. Following the completion of the PhD, ECAT-V lecturers will remain in post for up to three years of further parallel training in their clinical discipline (with completion of diploma/subspecialist qualifications as appropriate) with ongoing postdoctoral research. This postdoctoral period will be supported with dedicated research time to maintain momentum. Successful candidates will have an unrivalled opportunity to develop their careers as clinician scientists and be placed in an excellent situation to apply for both intermediate fellowships and senior clinical fellowships, and ultimately substantive university-funded academic posts. Clearly there are many ways to ‘skin the cat’ of clinical academic training, but our ambition is that, emboldened by the confidence of a longer term commitment to parallel research and clinical training, ECAT vets will make brave choices in obtaining rigorous state-of-the-art research training and emerge uniquely well-placed to be leaders in animal research for the next generation. n The ECAT-V programme is currently being advertised in Vet Record Careers (see p v of this print issue). More information is available at www.ecat.ed.ac.uk doi: 10.1136/vr.f6185 October 19, 2013 | Veterinary Record | 365
Downloaded from http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/ on June 26, 2015 - Published by group.bmj.com
ECAT-V: where clinical and research training meet David J. Argyle, John P. Iredale, Andrew P. Jackson and Brian R. Walker Veterinary Record 2013 173: 364-365
doi: 10.1136/vr.f6185 Updated information and services can be found at: http://veterinaryrecord.bmj.com/content/173/15/364
These include:
Email alerting service
Receive free email alerts when new articles cite this article. Sign up in the box at the top right corner of the online article.
Notes
To request permissions go to: http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions To order reprints go to: http://journals.bmj.com/cgi/reprintform To subscribe to BMJ go to: http://group.bmj.com/subscribe/
