Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center has an office dedicated to postdoctoral fellows (Office of Postdoctoral Affairs) that conducts multiple programs including a summer program that brings in outside speakers to mentor on different career avenues, a bi-monthly discussion group on problems facing postdoctoral trainees, and mentoring advice outside of normal channels.

The University of Cincinnati also conducts classes in grant writing, ethics in research, biostatistics, and structural biology. Cincinnati Children’s conducts a grant-writing workshop each year that all postdoctoral trainees are mandated to attend. Outside this, our training faculty will often recommend select graduate courses (Physiology, Pharmacology, Advanced Molecular Genetics, Cell II, etc.) to individual postdoctoral fellows if a deficit is perceived in their cardiovascular educational background.

Notably, the University of Cincinnati offers a Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) Program that includes courses and workshops in teaching and provides mentoring experiences to graduate students and postdocs interested in an academic career. This PFF program at UC was established in 1993 and has served as one of the founding groups of national PFF programs.

The program offers a course in the Academic Job Search as well as a course in effective teaching. Reading groups and workshops are organized throughout the year as well as part of the program. A 40-hour mentoring experience is also provided for those wishing to complete a certificate in the program.

In addition, University of Cincinnati postdoctoral trainees are represented by the University of Cincinnati Postdoctoral Fellow Association. This organization is supported by the Office of Research and helps promote an understanding of the opportunities for postdocs at the university, to present educational programs of interest, to foster professional relationships, and encourage participation in conferences and meetings.

This organization established a monthly seminar series, “Professional Career Development Seminar Series: Preparing for Life after Your Postdoc.” The series has included topics such as compliance, technology transfer, networking, resume/CV writing, and careers in the industry. These seminars are open to all postdoc trainees at the university and some are held jointly with the Postdoc Association at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center.

The College of Medicine also has two separate cardiovascular-based seminar series; one is organized and mentored by Jeffrey Robbins, PhD, a training faculty member and director of the Division of Molecular Cardiovascular Biology at Cincinnati Children’s, and the other is organized by the Cardiovascular Center of Excellence at UC. The two seminar series attract two or three internationally recognized cardiovascular speakers to campus each month. More importantly, the seminar series is structured so postdoctoral and predoctoral trainees have dedicated time during an extended lunch hour to meet with the speakers in a group setting.

The departments of Molecular and Cellular Physiology, Pharmacology and Cell Biophysics and Molecular Genetics, Biochemistry and Microbiology each also have several cardiovascular-oriented speakers each year for their seminar series. Thus, our collective environment is very rich in educational opportunities through a robust seminar series schedule. 

Finally, the training program conducts a weekly data/journal club that has been very popular and educational for the postdoctoral fellows. Another implicit rule for our postdoctoral trainees is that they write an individual postdoctoral fellowship to the National Institutes of Health National Research Service Award (NESA) or to the American Heart Association prior to completing the second year. Many postdoctoral trainees transfer off the training grant as these awards are obtained, a process that provides additional training and mentoring in grant writing.

All postdoctoral trainees are required to write a mock NIH grant application. We have implemented a Fellow leadership mode for the Training Grant Club thus maximizing trainee participation.
Postdoctoral training is a minimum of two years and usually lasts three years. Trainees completing the program will be trained scientists capable of independent research in cardiovascular science, using approaches at the molecular, cellular, and physiological levels. We often try to engage our postdoctoral trainees in the teaching of graduate courses to give them exposure to this aspect of an academic career as well.

Postdoctoral trainees are mentored in preparation and submission of fellowship applications to AHA and NRSA and during the latter stages of training, they are mentored in preparation of their first applications for independent funding as they prepare for their initial faculty appointments.

The University of Cincinnati is characterized for its collegial environment and highly interactive programs and core facilities. Thus, the trainees have ample opportunities to develop interactions and collaborations that will form the basis for a strong integrative perspective on cardiovascular science providing support for initiating their own independent laboratories. All trainees are required to take the “Ethics in Research” and the "Preparation for an Academic Career" courses, described above.

 They are also encouraged to take a Bioinformatics introductory course (see above; Dr. Bruce Aronow, Course Director). All postdoctoral trainees will be expected to attend the grant writing class at the University of Cincinnati as well as the grant-writing workshop at Cincinnati Children’s. Our IAC and specially formulated postdoctoral committees track the postdoctoral trainee’s progress in research, public speaking, and writing skills.

All trainees are required to attend the weekly journal/seminar series where one trainee or faculty member presents and members of the faculty provide constructive criticism on the trainee presentations. Attendance at departmental and the Dean’s Cardiovascular Center Distinguished Seminar program, as well as meetings with the seminar speakers, is required.