Transplant Surgery Research Fellowship

About the Organization

The Center for Healthcare Outcomes and Policy (CHOP) is one of the premier health services research organizations in the country, comprising more than 80 member researchers with diverse backgrounds and research portfolios. CHOP is home to 13 R01-funded scientists with annual extramural funding exceeding $30 million and published over 500 manuscripts last year, many in high-impact journals like NEJM, JAMA, JAMA Surgery, and Health Affairs. The CHOP research fellowship features year-round programming, a research bootcamp each July, and Friday work-in-progress sessions that routinely draw over 50 faculty, residents, and students.

The UM Health Transplant Center is one of the oldest and largest in the nation, having performed over 13,000 transplants since 1964. The Center operates 8 adult and pediatric solid organ transplant programs and evaluates more than 2,000 candidates annually. The Transplant Center Research Office supports clinical trials, prospective cohort research, and biorepository-based translational research among transplant candidates and recipients.

Michigan Medicine at the University of Michigan is consistently ranked among the nation’s top medical centers for patient care, safety, and research. The 884-bed medical center employs 2,700 faculty, cares for approximately 48,000 inpatients per year, and provides about 2.3 million clinic visits and 54,000 surgeries annually. Research data is extracted from the Electronic Health Record (EHR) and other sources into the Research Data Warehouse (RDW), a secure and compliant database containing data for over four million unique patients.

About the Role

The Transplant Surgery Research Fellow, supported by the University of Michigan Section of Transplantation and the UM Health Transplant Center, is a new position designed to support research education for general surgery residents interested in a career in abdominal transplant surgery or postdoctoral scholars with an interest in organ transplant policy and outcomes. The program offers comprehensive health services research training tailored to the Fellow’s specific subject matter and methodologic interests, including access to a formal research education curriculum through CHOP.

The program provides broad exposure to databases such as clinical registries from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR) and United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS), as well as Medicare and Medicaid claims. The team has extensive methodologic experience in natural experiments/econometrics and various machine learning techniques. The Fellow will collaborate with the broader CHOP community of funded surgeon-scientists, economists, sociologists, and qualitative researchers.

A key goal of the program is to create a faculty-level research startup plan. Trainees are selected competitively by program leadership and the existing transplant research team, with special emphasis on recruiting underrepresented candidates in medicine. The program is embedded within the rich research environment of the University of Michigan, including a highly collegial and interdisciplinary surgical health services research community.

Responsibilities

• Engage in a full-time research fellowship (minimum 40 hours per week) over a 24-month period, starting July 1, 2027, and ending June 30, 2029.
• Receive formalized instruction in health services/clinical research, including biostatistics, manuscript preparation, research ethics, grant writing, and regulatory guidelines.
• Collaborate with a sponsor-mentor team comprised of extramurally funded investigators at all career stages.
• Develop a faculty-level research startup plan as a longitudinal goal of the program.
• Maintain excellent academic standing with permission from the Program Director and Chairman to apply for the fellowship.

Requirements

• A terminal doctoral degree (e.g., Ph.D.) or a professional doctorate (e.g., M.D., D.D.S., D.V.M.).
• Must be a United States citizen, national, or permanent resident.
• Must be a graduate of medical school and currently enrolled in a surgical residency program.
• Must meet or exceed the minimum standards required by a residency review committee in the specialty the research fellow has trained or is currently training.

Benefits

The Transplant Surgery Research Fellowship offers a competitive salary and benefits package.