PDA

View Full Version : VA Launches New Minority Research Training Efforts



CAS3
09-16-03, 01:03 PM
VA Launches New Minority Research Training Efforts

WASHINGTON (Sept. 15, 2003) - In a move to strengthen the contributions of
minority researchers to biomedical and clinical research, the Department of
Veterans Affairs (VA) has announced several new efforts to increase
scientific career opportunities for under-represented minorities.

"By opening up more opportunities in VA research to minority health care
professionals, we're ensuring that veterans will continue to be served by
the best this country has to offer," said Deputy Secretary of Veterans
Affairs Dr. Leo S. Mackay Jr.

With an overall goal of enhancing research opportunities for minorities and
increasing funding for minority-serving institutions, the initiative calls
for three new mentoring programs:

* Supporting institutional collaborations between VA and
minority-serving institutions, involving students and faculty from these
institutions partnered with VA mentors.

* Providing applied training in research on VA-funded projects to
participants ranging from high school students and college undergraduates,
to graduates and pre-doctoral students.

* Offering a supportive career path for mentored research within VA
for people who have completed their clinical fellowships or doctoral
training within the last two years. The program provides a full salary to
awardees for three years.

Mackay noted that VA's new mentor programs are modeled after successful
programs offered by the National Institutes of Health and the Robert Wood
Johnson Foundation.

The mentoring programs will partner VA medical centers with historically
black colleges and universities, Hispanic-serving institutions, tribal
colleges and universities, and other institutions with sizeable
concentrations of Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, native Hawaiians and
Alaska natives.

Projected to cost about $6 million annually, the program is scheduled to
begin in April 2004.

"We believe VA research programs can be enhanced nationally by engaging the
leadership of minority-serving institutions, foundations, professional
societies and the VA research community," Mackay said.

For more information about the program, visit the website at
www.va.gov/resdev.