Pitt named a top workplace for postdoctoral fellows
The Departments of Psychiatry, Medicine and Psychology of the University of Pittsburgh offer a training program in cardiovascular behavioral medicine research for postdoctoral and predoctoral fellows. The program is funded by the National Institutes of Health, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. The postdoctoral program is designed for physicians (including third or fourth year residents) and Ph.D.'s in psychology and related behavioral disciplines. The predoctoral program a two-fold program: 1) one arm is designed for B.A. or B.S. applicants interested in earning a Ph.D. in Health Psychology with an emphasis on cardiovascular behavioral medicine and 2) a second arm is specifically for summer training in research for medical students.
Overview of T32 Program in Cardiovascular Behavioral Medicine Research Training
Cardiovascular behavioral medicine is defined as
the application of psychological and behavioral principles and theory to
understanding the etiology, course, prevention and treatment of, and
recovery from, cardiovascular diseases (CVD).
As such, it is a multidisciplinary field that requires high
quality and broad training in behavior and behavior change, research
methods and statistics, and cardiovascular physiology, pathophysiology,
and CVD outcomes. Beginning
in 1983, our program offers training in cardiovascular behavioral
medicine research at three levels: postdoctoral, predoctoral, and
short-term medical student research training.
Our program supports 4 predoctoral and 4 postdoctoral fellowships
and 2 medical student summer research traineeships per year.
Our program for the post- and pre-doctoral
fellows is designed to foster proficiency in four areas that comprise
the foundations of cardiovascular behavioral medicine:
1.
Principles of health behavior and health behavioral change,
through which an understanding is developed of theoretical underpinnings
of relevant areas of psychology, such as motivation, personality,
emotion regulation, attitude and behavior change in individuals, with
the latter focusing on physical activity, diet, smoking, and sleep
behavior.
2.
Research methodology and statistics,
whereby the skills necessary for designing and conducting research and
for drawing valid inferences from empirical data are taught, with
exposure to analytic approaches to complex longitudinal data.
3.
Cardiovascular physiology and psychophysiology,
through which an understanding is established of cardiovascular and
metabolic functioning in the healthy human and the new technological
advances that allow measurement of function.
4.
Cardiovascular diseases,
including distributions of CVD in human populations, disparities between
populations (e.g., by race/ethnicity, socioeconomic position, gender,
etc.), principles of pathophysiology and physiology as related to
disorders of the heart and vasculature, and state-of-the art approaches
to assessing biomarkers of risk and imaging subclinical and clinical
cardiovascular diseases.
Building upon these foundations, our program
facilitates the development of independent clinical research scientists
who take a multidisciplinary approach within the following primary
areas: (a) mechanistic pathways connecting psychosocial and
sociodemographic factors to cardiovascular risk; (b) determinants and
consequences of health behaviors; and (c) behavioral interventions to
reduce cardiovascular risk.
Multidisciplinary
training model.
Our training model is a team-based mentoring model with supplemental
experiences that are individually tailored to fill prior training gaps
and prepare our trainees to nimbly adapt to emerging research areas and
opportunities. Mentoring
teams are established during the interview process and charged with
working closely with the trainees in developing their fellowship
objectives, providing opportunities to acquire skills needed, advising
on the key didactic training available to meet their career goals, and
introducing them to networks of scientists with similar research
interests at other Universities.
The training faculty are a talented group of
scientists who have well developed and widely recognized research
programs. The figure below
shows faculty interests in relation to our three primary areas:
Resources
supporting our program.
World-class imaging facilities are located at the University of
Pittsburgh and include a state of the art PET facility and MR Research
Center. The Ultrasound
Research Epidemiology Laboratory provides key resources to our trainees
interested in subclinical cardiovascular disease.
An extensive range of additional
non-invasive imaging modalities (e.g., measuring endothelial function,
coronary vascular reserve and myocardial fibrosis) are available through
our Vascular Medicine Institute, with imaging workshops conducted within
a training program in imaging sciences in translational cardiovascular
research. Complementing these
resources are the services offered through the Physical Activity and
Weight Management Research Center.
This center provides expertise in measurement of body fat,
nutrition, and metabolism relevant to research on obesity and prevention
of diabetes. Formal
coursework is available through the Departments of Psychiatry,
Psychology, Epidemiology, Health and Physical Activity, and Medicine.
The Office of Academic Career Development, headed by the
Associate Vice Chancellor of the Health Sciences, supports the
development of career paths for postdoctoral fellows at the School of
Medicine and hosts series of workshops relevant to our program, i.e.,
grantsmanship, writing skills, management and leadership training,
survival skills, and ethics in research.
