Spring 2008, Volume 11, Issue 1

CIRCL Welcomes Columbia Fogarty Fellow

The Trauma and Injury Excellence in Education on Research (TRAINEER) Program funded by the Fogarty International Center of NIH, is an innovative collaboration between the School of Medicine’s Department of Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh and the CISALVA Institute at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. Since traumatic injury is the leading health problem in Colombia, TRAINEER will help build the capacity of investigators to conduct human trauma and injury research relevant to the health needs of Colombia. The program architect for this collaboration is Dr. Juan Carlos Puyana, associate professor of Critical Care Medicine and Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.

The objective of this project is to raise awareness among health and other professionals in Colombia about the importance of injury and trauma research. To this end, TRAINEER consists of several separate but intimately related training activities. Annual research training workshops and research symposiums held in Colombia will be designed to ensure that advanced in-country training extends beyond the co-investigators at the Universidad del Valle. During their visit to Colombia, Pittsburgh faculty will create a number of opportunities for cross discipline collaboration.

Advanced research training will be provided to several Colombians who demonstrate a commitment to return to Colombia upon completion of their training in the United States. This training is consolidated under the Institute for Clinical Research Education, which was created to enhance and coordinate clinical research training programs (CRTP) across all of the schools of Health Science. For one or two years, Colombian fellows will reside in Pittsburgh and complete a Master in Science of Clinical Research. The program’s ultimate goal is to promote the development of independent investigators in trauma research. While in the US, trainees work with a mentor to gain research experience and develop a research proposal emphasizing methodology and scientific methods for injury and trauma research.

Alvaro Sánchez, MD, is the first recipient of the Fogarty scholarship to enroll in the TRAINEER program. He is completing his Master in Clinical Science at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Sánchez began working at CIRCL under the mentorship of Dr. Hank Weiss. Dr. Sánchez is researching recent trends in mortality and short-term functional outcomes associated with severe TBI at hospital discharge in Pennsylvania trauma centers, from 1998 to 2007. To conduct this research, Dr. Sánchez is developing a secondary-data analysis study with the Pennsylvania Trauma Outcome Study (PTOS) database, a state wide registry maintained by the Pennsylvania Trauma System Foundation (PTSF). The main goal of this project is to determine the mortality and functional status at hospital discharge over the last ten years, of patients with severe TBI who presented to an accredited trauma center in the state of Pennsylvania. A specific study objective is to describe and quantify the relationship between demographic characteristics and short-term functional outcome after severe TBI. The fact that the current state of knowledge of TBI necessitates new research is portrayed by the increasing survival of patients with severe TBI; as well as, the substantial incidence of disability and associated in-hospital costs of surviving patients with severe TBI.

Dr. Sánchez earned his MD degree in 2005 at the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia. He became interested in injury epidemiology as a medical student when he began working with CISALVA Institute’s Director and Universidad del Valle School of Public Health, Professor Maria Isabel Gutierrez, analyzing external causes of injury-related deaths data from the city of Cali. After finishing his medical degree, Dr. Sánchez became intrigued by the potential to reduce the incidence of injury-related deaths. He then started a Masters degree in Epidemiology at the Universidad del Valle School of Public Health and took a position at CISALVA Institute. His work there included developing epidemiological research and recommending public health policies, based on external causes of injury surveillance systems, to prevent violence and injury-related deaths in different municipalities of Colombia. Also he served as an assistant professor at the Universidad del Valle where he taught fourth year medical students about violence and injury prevention using the World Health Organization’s TEACH VIP course (website).