American Physician Scientists Association
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The American Physician Scientists Association (APSA) is dedicated to career development and community building among
physician-scientist A physician-scientist is traditionally a holder of a medical degree and a doctor of philosophy also known as an MD-PhD. Compared to other clinicians, physician-scientists invest significant time and professional effort in scientific research and ...
s in training.


Organization and purpose

The American Physician Scientists Association (APSA) is a national organization dedicated to addressing the needs of future
physician A physician (American English), medical practitioner (Commonwealth English), medical doctor, or simply doctor, is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through th ...
-
scientists A scientist is a person who conducts scientific research to advance knowledge in an area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engaged in the philosophica ...
with respect to their training and career development. APSA strives to be the student physician-scientists' leading voice for improving educational opportunities, advancing patient-oriented research, and advocating for the future of translational medicine. In this regard, it carries out local and national initiatives, provides student leadership opportunities, facilitates communication between physician-scientist trainees, and hosts a joint annual meeting for its members. It also collaborates with leading research and health organizations, including the
National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
.


History

The American Physician Scientists Association was initially conceived in 2003-2004 and formally incorporated in 2005 by a group of MD-PhD students. Since then, the organization been rapidly expanding, and is currently officially represented at almost 100 institutions across the U.S. Its growing membership has helped make it the largest organization specifically representing physician-scientist trainees.


Leadership

The American Physician Scientists Association is led by th
Executive Council
Executive Council members are voted in by Institutional Representatives. These are physician-scientist trainees and APSA members who serve as liaisons between students at local institutions and the APSA leadership. Institutional Representatives help the Executive Council better grasp the needs of trainees at their local institutions. The Executive Council is overseen by the Board of Directors, which serves as an advisory board to the rest of the organization, and consists of active physician-scientists and former APSA Executive Council members. In addition to the Board of Directors and Executive Council, there are five standing committees who lead most of APSA's projects. Members of the APSA have the opportunity to serve on any of the organization's five standing committees, each of which has a unique role within the organization to help it achieve its mission. Currently, the standing committees operate in the areas of organizational finances, membership recruitment, organizational policy, public relations, and Annual Meeting planning. APSA also works with numerous partner organizations and supporters.


Meetings

The APSA has held its Annual Meeting since April 2005 in conjunction with the
American Society for Clinical Investigation The American Society for Clinical Investigation (ASCI), established in 1908, is one of the oldest and most respected medical honor societies in the United States. Organization and purpose The ASCI is an honorary society to which more than 2,800 ph ...
and the
Association of American Physicians The Association of American Physicians (AAP) is an honorary medical society founded in 1885 by the Canadian physician Sir William Osler and six other distinguished physicians of his era for "the advancement of scientific and practical medicine." ...
in Chicago, Illinois. The meeting serves as an opportunity for mentoring and networking across the entire spectrum of the physician-scientist career pathway, including career development sessions and panels. A number of prominent speakers have been featured at these meetings including current
NIH The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
Director
Francis Collins Francis Sellers Collins (born April 14, 1950) is an American physician-geneticist who discovered the genes associated with a number of diseases and led the Human Genome Project. He is the former director of the National Institutes of Health ( ...
,
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded yearly by the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute for outstanding discoveries in physiology or medicine. The Nobel Prize is not a single prize, but five separate prizes that, accord ...
winner and former
National Cancer Institute The National Cancer Institute (NCI) coordinates the United States National Cancer Program and is part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is one of eleven agencies that are part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ...
Director
Harold Varmus Harold Eliot Varmus (born December 18, 1939) is an American Nobel Prize-winning scientist. He is currently the Lewis Thomas University Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and a senior associate at the New York Genome Center. He was ...
. Several dozen competitive travel grants are typically available for APSA members who wish to present their research at the meeting. The Annual Meeting is also when the Executive Council of APSA meets to conduct a yearly review, propose future initiatives, and vote for positions on next year's Executive Council. Starting in 2006, the APSA began hosting regional meetings and currently hosts four in the fall of each year in cities across the United States. The primary focus of these regional meetings is on building a regional community of physician-scientist trainees and focusing on outreach to current and future trainees who are unable to attend the Annual Meeting.


External links

* {{authority control Medical associations based in the United States Medical and health professional associations in Chicago Organizations established in 2005 2005 establishments in Illinois