DMSC 701 - Doctoral Capstone Project I

Description
The Doctoral Capstone Project (DCP)  aims to provide students with an opportunity to engage in a mentored scholarly experience involving a medical, healthcare or community health-related issue that promotes critical thinking and clinician leadership. Students can elect to engage in clinical, basic, or translational research; case study with a comprehensive literature review; meta-analysis; educational, quality improvement, or community-based implementation project. In the process they will practice and apply medical information literacy, lifelong learning, teamwork, effective communication, research methods, evidence-based medicine approaches and ethics related to scholarly inquiry. Each student will participate in the DCP by engaging in independent scholarly activity culminating in a final report (which may include a draft manuscript submitted for publication) and participation (with oral/poster presentation) in a student research symposium during the last term of the DMSc program.

In this course, students are formally introduced to the process and requirements of the capstone experience. The goal is to help students identify a specific area of interest for the DCP and a potential mentor, draft an approved prospectus (or proposal), and secure ethical (IRB/IACUC) approval if warranted. Students, supported by the mentor, instructor and resources, will identify a problem in either mentored scholarly experience involving a medical, healthcare or community health-related issue that promotes critical thinking and clinician leadership.

Once the student identifies a specific area of interest a potential mentor will be identified. The student is responsible for coordinating meeting times/dates in a professional manner and meets with the mentor to discuss possible projects. After student and mentor identify a research question/hypothesis, or exact problem to be resolved, they develop a detailed prospectus which must be approved by the DCP faculty. All projects must be supported by primary literature. The approved prospectus/proposal must include a formal literature review, clear objectives, research question and/or problem statement, and detailed methodological approaches which serve as a template to guide the student and mentor through the longitudinal DCP. Students must complete CITI training and receive IRB/IACUC approval (if applicable) before the beginning of the research.


Course Delivery Model(s): Online

Lecture Hours: 0
Lab Hours: 0
Total Hours: 45
Credits: 1

Prerequisites: DMSC610
Corequisites: None

Repeatable (# of times): 0

Grade Type: Pass/No Pass