Overview
The central nervous system is the physical generator of thoughts, feelings, perception, and action. The nervous system is also the only system of the body commonly represented by an undergraduate major, and many medical students come to the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania especially interested in neuroscience. UPenn also has a PhD graduate program in neuroscience (Neuroscience Graduate Group, NGG) as well as neuroscience-focused students in other graduate departments including Pharmacology, Bioengineering, and Cellular & Molecular Biology.
The Clinical Neurosciences Training Program (CNST) was originally established at Penn to nurture interest and maintain medical students' intellectual involvement and success in the neurosciences, and more recently expanded its mission to include graduate students in neuroscience-related fields to facilitate inter-disciplinary translational training. It is administered within the Penn Medicine Translational Neuroscience Center. The goal of the CNST is to train translational neuroscientists who will participate at the forefront of clinical and academic practice, and/or disease oriented research. The program combines curricular enrichment in the neurosciences, mentoring, clinical shadowing, special extracurricular activities and research opportunities.
The CNST is open to all medical and graduate students at the University of Pennsylvania who have an interest in translational neuroscience. Many students have had previous neuroscience experience but this is not a prerequisite for participation. By participating in the CNST, students gain greater understanding for the complexities of clinical research and appreciation for its importance.
The mission of the CNST is to provide excellent career development training for students in medicine, neuroscience, and related fields who aspire to become translational neuroscientists. This will be accomplished by:
- creating opportunities to participate in clinically relevant cutting edge research
- providing strong academic mentoring for the development of neuroscientific careers
- promoting productive intellectual crosstalk between basic and clinical neurosciences in an engaged student and faculty community