Clinical Investigator Fellowship

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The GIM Clinical Investigator Fellowship is designed for graduating or recently graduated internal medicine residents interested in pursuing a career in academic quality improvement, research, or health policy.

Mission and vision

The GIM Clinical Investigator Fellowship provides mentored training in research methods, scholarly work, and leadership to support the development of scholars in academic General Internal Medicine. Fellowship graduates will be prepared to develop successful, satisfying, and fulfilling careers advancing health equity and individual and population health.

Message from the Director

Welcome to the website for the UW General Internal Medicine Clinical Investigator Fellowship Program!

Why General Internal Medicine?

General Internal Medicine is unique among medical specialties. One the one hand, general internists are taught to think like detectives, coolly and rationally piecing together clues from multiple data sources to arrive at a diagnosis. On the other hand, as primary care doctors and hospitalists, we face the human impacts of health and disease, which keep our focus on the humanity of the people that we help care for.

GIM scholars are special too, and we don’t all fit into the same mold. Many medical problems are in the realm of the general internist, so we are researchers, educators, and policymakers in addiction, diabetes, aging, cardiovascular disease, and thousands of other disciplines. The rational detective skills and humanism that form the cornerstones of our training also influence the way we solve problems outside of the exam room or the inpatient ward and the way we approach scientific questions. These tools help us to integrate the big picture and the small, and to ask questions that are clinically meaningful. Take me, for example. As a fellowship-trained general internist and a physician-scientist, I study type 2 diabetes. To go after the answers to my questions, I use tools ranging from massive electronic health record datasets to in vitro mouse models.

Why Fellowship?

Fellowship training is a critical part of an academic career in GIM. The skills we learn in fellowship can help us articulate our core values, design exciting questions, and communicate our knowledge. These skills aren’t just important for physician-scientists. General internists can use them in other roles too. (And we are everywhere, as hospitalists, outpatient physicians, scientists, educators, and policymakers.) But many medicine residents and recent graduates may not even be aware that fellowship is an option. We are trying to change that.

Why UW?

First the downsides of UW General Internal Medicine Clinician Scholars Fellowship Program: Our fellowship is pretty new, and it’s small. Now, some upsides: Our fellowship is pretty new, and it’s small. J This means that we’re excited to try to help you create an experience that can be tailored to your specific career goals. We are also very proud of our mentors (link). Although many of our faculty are world class experts in their fields, our institution has a friendly and open culture. There are other upsides too, that you can read about (here) and (here).

I chose to lead this fellowship because I wanted to help build a community of learners based in GIM. I am excited to be part of a new era in GIM at our institution and a commitment to training the next generation of academic general internists. We’d be excited for you to join us. Please look around our web site to learn more about our fellowship program. We are available any time of year to answer questions or to talk more about how GIM fellowship works.

- Dr. Luke Wander

Leadership

Program Director

Dr. Pandora “Luke” Wander, MD, MS, FACP

Program Contact

Stephanie Santos, Manager of Educational Programs
santoss2@uw.edu