by Christine Sorkness and Cathy Thornburg
The Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) Meeting took place on April 18-21, 2017 at Washington Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, DC. The mission of this annual meeting is to bring together all of the disciplines involved in clinical and translational research, share successes, and network with colleagues. NRMN had a strong presence at this meeting with two Career Development Workshops facilitated by NRMN Master Facilitators.
How to be an Effective Mentor
Drs. Emma Meagher and Christine Sorkness, NRMN Master Facilitators, facilitated a 1-hour mentee training workshop titled “How to be an Effective Mentee” on Friday, April 21. This session built on the extensive experience at the University of Wisconsin-Madison designing and implementing novel approaches to building skills of mentors and mentees. In particular, it demonstrated a portion of the curriculum designed for K Scholars. The workshop highlighted the importance of and approaches to effective communications and aligning expectations for mentoring relationships. The activities in the workshop emphasized how trainees can both take responsibility for and become skilled at guiding these relationships rather than waiting for mentors to take the lead.
Novel Approaches to Successful Grant Writing
Dr. Rick McGee, NRMN Master Facilitator, facilitated a 1-hour grant writing workshop titled “Novel Approaches to Successful Grant Writing” on Thursday, April 20. This workshop session introduced a novel way for teaching and learning the skill of writing NIH-style research proposals. It is based on a method developed and used over the past decade, focusing on learning and writing to rhetorical patterns. It also demonstrated the use of oral feedback processes with mentors and peers to replicate how reviewers read and evaluate proposals. Both methods have proved to be very effective by Dr. McGee through this work with the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN).
To learn more about the ACTS Meeting or to see resources, please visit the website here.
