Abstract B26: CDU/UCLA U54 Cancer Center Partnership's Education and Training Program: Methods, measures, and outcomes.
Authors: Sarkissyan Marianna , Ong May , Wu Yanyuan , Gasson Judith , Farias-Eisner Robin , Vadgama Jaydutt V. 
Published: August 2014

Background: The U54 CDU/UCLA Cancer Center Partnership has an Education and Training Program that provides cancer education and research training for students at the undergraduate, graduate/medical, and postdoctoral level. The Specific Aims of the Education and Training program are to facilitate training opportunities between CDU and UCLA for target student populations and to standardize and develop training/mentoring practices. The focus of the present abstract is on the methods, measures, and outcomes specifically developed by the program for the undergraduate student population (Undergraduate Cancer Research Training Program – UCRTP).

Methods: A logic model was developed to reveal the formal framework for an established Education and Training Program. The Logic Model reveals four central components of the Education and Training experience: 1) Research Methods and Theory; 2) Advanced Education; 3) Mentorship/Networking; 4) Career Development. All the components and student activities (before, during, and after participation in the program) are tied to an Evaluation component which statistically assesses recruitment, student/mentor experience, and student output on multiple levels (short-term, mid-term, and long-term). Evaluation allows for the program to self-monitor identifying key points of success and areas for improvement. Statistics are computed with SPSS 17.0 and Excel, P&gt;0.05 is significant.

Results: Highlights of the results of implementing recruitment, training, and evaluation methods are as follows. Recruitment - By strategically targeting counselors and utilizing the social media/internet, the program has increased: the applicant number by almost double every year (N= 27 in Year 1 to N = 99 in Year 3), the competitiveness of student applicants (80% with GPA &gt;3.5-4.0 GPA), and diversity of the student applicants (&gt;80% are underrepresented/underprivileged). Training and Scientific Output- A summary of the scientific output by students include over N = 8 peer reviewed publications resulting from student project participation, over N = 25 abstracts from student projects, and N = 9 manuscripts in preparation with students as co-authors. Education and Career Tracking- To date, we have a compiled tracking data on over N = 50 students. Among the U54 UCRTP (2010-2011 - N = 22), 18% have indicated they intend to pursue an MD/PHD Program, 36% to pursue an MD Program, and 45% to pursue a Graduate Program. The follow-ups of the Pre-U54 Students 2004 - Present (N = 28), reveal that 29% of former students have matriculated into Medical School, 25% have matriculated into Graduate School, 4% matriculated into Nursing School, 33% who have intentions of pursing higher degrees, and 11% who are employed, surprisingly all as research staff in academia.

Conclusion: The Education and Training program has crystallized its components into a logic model that has facilitated the systematic implementation of measures for successful recruitment, training, and tracking of students and concurrent program evaluation. The results indicate that we have contributed towards increasing the number of underrepresented students pursuing careers in health and research. Future plans include formal program assessment and pursuing accreditation for credits for participating students.

Acknowledgements: Thank you to all the students and mentors for their hard work. These activities were supported in part by grants from NIH/National Cancer Institute 1U54CA14393-01; U56 CA101599-01; CA15083-25S3; R25DK067015-01; to J.V. Vadgama.

Citation Format: Marianna Sarkissyan, May Ong, Yanyuan Wu, Judith Gasson, Robin Farias-Eisner, Jaydutt V. Vadgama. CDU/UCLA U54 Cancer Center Partnership's Education and Training Program: Methods, measures, and outcomes. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fifth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2012 Oct 27-30; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2012;21(10 Suppl):Abstract nr B26.