Medical Education & Training
As a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School, DFCI supports extensive participation by its professional staff in medical education, in clinical training, and in predoctoral and postdoctoral research training. There is considerable overlap among these programs, as expected for an institution that has the integration of research findings into clinical practice as one of its primary objectives.
At Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health, DFCI staff members serve as teaching faculty for graduate and undergraduate courses in the basic biomedical and related sciences. Medical staff members serve as faculty for medical student clinical clerkships, form the Pediatric Oncology service at Children's Hospital, and function as attending physicians at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Elective courses for medical students in medical and pediatric oncology are offered at DFCI, and research opportunities are available in the Institute's laboratories.
Research training is available in every laboratory and department of DFCI. All members of the Institute's professional staff hold faculty appointments at Harvard University, and many participate as trainers for institutional predoctoral and postdoctoral training programs at Harvard through their departmental faculty appointments or at neighboring Harvard-affiliated hospitals. As of July 1, 2000, the Institute was supporting approximately 40 graduate students, most of whom were enrolled in degree programs at Harvard University, and 352 individuals receiving postdoctoral training, many of whom held National Research Service Awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) or other individual fellowship awards.
In 1981, the Institute established the weekly seminar series titled "Seminars in Oncology." A committee that includes faculty, fellows, and students selects the topics and speakers for this series. Most speakers are from outside the Institute, and many are from outside Boston. The seminars draw an audience from the entire Boston biomedical research community.
