The Center for Surgical Trials and Evidence-based Practice (C-STEP) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is a multi-disciplinary program designed to advance evidence-based practice in surgery by providing young faculty and surgical trainees with formal training in clinical research, mentorship, resources, and funding to perform high quality research.

The goals of C-STEP are:

• To foster and develop surgical faculty, staff, and trainees (including medical students) interested in clinical research.
• To advance the surgical evidence base and its application in clinical practice.

C-STEP provides program to medical students, surgical residents, and young surgical faculty including:

• Fellowship in Clinical Research
• Advanced Degree Programs
• Focused Research in Surgery for Medical Students
• Clinical Research Lecture Series
• Clinical Research Roundtables
• Pilot Grant Programs
• Surgical Journal Club
• Clinical Research Symposia
• Research Network

Fellowship in Clinical Research

The C-STEP Clinical Research Fellowship is accepting beginning July 1, 2014. The 2-year program is established for surgical residents interested in a career in academic clinical research with a focus in pediatric surgery. Fellows will obtain a Master’s Degree in a Clinical Research established by the Center for Evidenced-based Medicine and Clinical Research at UTHealth Medical School. The Master’s program curriculum focuses on training clinical investigators in designing and conducting patient-oriented research of high quality. In addition to the educational foundation, fellows will work with established faculty mentors with advanced degrees in clinical research to develop expertise in the scientific research process. This would include identifying key problems in pediatric surgery, gathering and analyzing the current evidence and literature, and developing/implementing a clinical research study. In addition, fellows will work with mentors to learn the mechanisms of becoming a funded clinical researcher. Applicants should have completed the PGY-2 year of an ACGME-accredited general surgery residency program by the start of the fellowship. Pay and benefits will commensurate with NIH guidelines for PGY level.
Please visit the Center for Clinical Research and Evidenced-Based Medicine for more information regarding the Master’s Degree in Clinical Research.

Summer Research Program

Lecture Series in Clinical Surgical Research

Every summer, the surgery and pediatric surgery faculty have MS-1 students work with them through the NIH-funded Summer Research Program offered through the medical school. Through C-STEP, we plan to augment the summer research program’s seminar series by providing a 10-week series on clinical research with a surgical focus. All students are welcome to attend. The lectures will be held from 3:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. on Thursdays, in room MSB B.625 (Basement, Blue Section) unless noted otherwise below.

2014 Lecture Schedule

• May 29 – Developing a research hypothesis – what is a PICO question, and how do develop one? (Lecturer: Curtis Wray, MD) – MSB B.100
• June 5 – Now that I have a question, how do I do a literature search? (Lecturer: Clara Fowler, Sr. Librarian, MD Anderson)
• June 12 – What study design should I use? (Lecturer: KuoJen Tsao, MD)
• June 26 – Translational research (Lecturer: Stacey Moore-Olufemi, MD)
• July 3 – What basic statistics do I need to know? (Lecturer: Lillian Kao, MD, MS)
• July 10 – Now that I have results, how do I write an abstract and make a poster presentation? (Lecturer: Charles S. Cox, MD)
• July 17 – How do I give a presentation? (Lecturer: Kevin Lally, MD, MS)
• July 24 – How do I appraise the literature? (Lecturer: Mary Austin, MD, MPH)
• July 31 – Student presentations

Faculty

Lillian S. Kao, MD, MS (Co-Director) – General Surgery and Critical Care Surgery
Kevin P. Lally, MD, MS (Co-Director) – Pediatric Surgery
Mary Austin, MD, MPH – Pediatric Surgery
Marty Blakely, MD, MS – Pediatric Surgery
Steven E. Canfield, MD – Urology
George Chang, MD MS – Surgical Oncology
Bryan Cotton, MD, MPH – Acute Care Surgery
Charles S. Cox, MD – Pediatric Surgery
Clara Fowler, Sr. Librarian – Literature Appraisal
Maureen Goode, PhD – CCTS
Matthew T. Harting,  MD, MS - Pediatric Surgery
Andrea Hayes-Jordan, MD – Pediatric Surgery
John Holcomb, MD – Acute Care Surgery
Kathleen Kennedy, MD MPH (program advisor) – Neonatology, MS in Clinical Research Program
Pam Lally, MD – Pediatrics, Database Design
Charles C. Miller III, PhD – Epidemiology, CV Surgery
Stacey Moore-Olufemi, MD - Pediatric Surgery
Eric Thomas, MD MPH – Internal Medicine, Health Quality and Safety
KuoJen Tsao, MD – Pediatric Surgery
Jon Tyson, MD, MPH (program advisor) – Neonatology, Center for Clinical Research and EBM
Curtis Wray, MD – Surgical Oncology

Contact Us

For more information regarding C-STEP and its fellowship programs, please contact:
KuoJen Tsao, MD
Kuojen.Tsao@uth.tmc.edu
or
Lillian Kao, MD, MS
Lillian.S.Kao@uth.tmc.edu