The Duke Program - Internal Medicine Residency Program ::

The Department of Medicine encourages applications from individuals who plan careers as physician scientists. The development of these physicians is a major priority for our training program.

That’s why we offer the Research Pathway option for certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

To facilitate the professional development of these trainees, they are also offered membership in the Haynes Society during their first year of residency.

Clinical Research Training Course

The focus of the course is the preparation of a methodologically sound research proposal. The CRTC is directed by David L. Simel, MD, MHS, Professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Chief of Medicine, Durham VA Medical Center. Linda Sanders, MPH, MEd teaches and coordinates the biostatistics curriculum.

This popular course reserves approximately 20 spaces and is typically assigned to junior residents. The course is aimed at house staff and fellows considering clinical research careers, as well as junior and mid-level faculty members from all departments seeking skills in clinical research methods. At the conclusion of the course, trainees are well-versed in critical appraisal of the literature and have a clearer understanding of the process of clinical research.

This entry-level clinical research course prepares those seeking additional training for advanced course work offered through the Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics Clinical Research Training Program leading to a Master of Health Sciences in Clinical Research degree.

Daily morning course work in biostatistics is taught with combined didactic and participatory techniques. All students are issued a laptop computer for their use during the course and provided course notes which they can keep. Students are taught basic biostatistics, including establishing a data base, descriptive statistics, graphical display of data, simple hypothesis testing, categorical data analysis, sample size estimation, and introductory regression analysis.

Afternoon sessions, devoted to clinical epidemiology research methods, are taught by faculty members representing a variety of disciplines.

Course participants learn to critically appraise the literature when reading cohort, case-control, randomized controlled, or cross-over trials. These skills are amplified with advanced computer-based literature search education, preparation of a research proposal budget, legal and ethical issues in clinical research, and instruction in scientific writing.

A research seminar is held at the end of each academic year so that the residents completing their clinical research projects can present the results to their colleagues.

Haynes Society

The Haynes Society was created to foster the research environment for physician scientist trainees in the Department of Medicine at Duke.

Members of the society include residents, fellows, and faculty members in the Department of Medicine.

The society was named in honor of Dr. Barton Haynes, former Chair of Medicine at Duke and the current Director of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. In his more than 25 years at Duke, Dr. Haynes has mentored a generation of physician scientists. He is the consummate role model of a superb scientist, clinician, and teacher.

"Duke Internal Medicine provides training that teaches residents both the science and the art of medicine, and helps residents to become life-long learners. Those residents in interested in clinical practice are mentored by superb clinicians. Those interested in careers as physician-scientists are mentored by outstanding role models. The Medicine housestaff program is designed to be flexible to accomodate individual housestaff interests.”

Barton Haynes, MD

Director, Duke Human Vaccine Institute
Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology