Saturday, October 12^th, Students and faculty convened for the 38th annual Medical Scientist Training Program Retreat at the scenic Sunwood Estates.

The day began with a “state of the union” address by Director Mike Frohman, MD/PhD, who thanked everyone for their part in securing a T32 training grant renewal this year. Dr. Frohman also shared feedback from the NIH evaluators. Grant reviewers praised the MSTP curriculum for emphasizing science communication by including Alan Alda courses and workshops. They were also impressed by students’ publication record, which is on average 5 publications including 2.5 first author papers per trainee.

For this year’s guest speaker, the MSTP invited Dr. Mark Sands, MD/MBA/FACR, Chief Medical Officer at Stony Brook University Hospital. Dr. Sands gave a talk on the burnout epidemic among medical professionals titled, “Stress and Physician (Scientist) burnout: How to stay lit!” The workshop included a brief history of the medical profession, including major health policy changes and technological innovations in patient data and privacy that have exacerbated physician overwork and burnout. Dr. Sands led a discussion about sources of stress among medical and graduate students before offering strategies for managing stress and preventing burnout. Key recommendations included increasing self-awareness, practicing mindfulness, and meditation.

Throughout the morning and afternoon, the 3^rd-, 4^th-, and 5^th-year (GS3-5) MSTP trainees gave research talks. Talks from doctoral candidates Kelvin Chan, Danielle Fassler, Tyler Guinn, Michael Motley, Rachel Kery, Michael Li, and Mikhail Gurevich represented a diverse range of topics in neuroscience, cancer, immunology, genetics and pharmacology. The Best Talk Prize was awarded to Rachel Kery (GS4, Shaoyu Ge Lab) for her talk titled, “Untangling the Cell Type-Specific Projections of the Zone of Uncertainty.” Soon-to-be-doctor Kery wowed the audience with a tour of the poorly-understood zona incerta, featuring beautiful brain maps and exciting new tools for neuronal labeling that she has developed for her dissertation work. Junior trainees participated in a poster session attended by faculty and peers. Aziz Rangwala (GS1, Markus Seeliger Lab) and Alex Larkin (GS2, Ben Martin Lab) both won prizes for Best Poster.

The final activity of the day was a Breakout Session, where small groups of students brainstormed how to improve the MSTP community and boost participation. At the end of the session, each group reported their ideas for strengthening the MSTP to the student body. Students suggested instituting a formal student government and implementing an MSTP guidebook or wiki page to improve communication and resource sharing between cohorts. Since the retreat, students have already begun writing an MSTP wiki, a project spearheaded by MS2 Camelia Zheng.

Special thanks to Program Administrator Alison Gibbons for organizing a successful event!

(written by Nuri Kim)