The Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars Program fosters the development of physician-leaders who will transform health and health care in this country. Scholars will be equipped to work with communities, organizations, practitioners and policy makers to conduct innovative research important to enhancing the health and well being in these communities.  The program’s major focus emphasizes community-based research and leadership training.

Scholars will integrate their clinical training with skills in program development and research methods in order to address the challenges posed by the U.S. healthcare system, community health and health services research.  To build these skills, Scholars engage in graduate-level study and mentored research in a university-based post-residency training program. The Clinical Scholars Program generally involves two years’ study and research; up to 20 percent of a scholar’s time is spent in maintaining clinical skills. 

UCLA Clinical Scholars receive intensive training in the methods of creating health and health care change at community, practice and policy levels. The curriculum is based on a social, behavioral and community conceptual framework that combines didactic and experiential teaching methods. Scholars are expected to complete graduate-level research projects in an area of their interest and to learn the methods of community based participatory research. Community-based participatory research is a research method anchored in collaboration with communities.  Scholars will learn to collaborate with a communities to: 1) define a research issue; 2) develop a research strategy; 3) design research instruments; and 4) work with the community to recruit subjects and collect data, 5) disseminate their findings so as to provide ongoing feedback to the community.  To date, scholars have conducted studies in diverse health-related fields, such as problems of health care delivery and financing, clinical decision-making, biomedical ethics, medical history and health care policy.

Scholars build on their own talents, as well as those of their mentors and diverse community partners, in order to become agents for improving health and health care. Scholars spend their first year in intensive, community-based learning and project development, followed by advanced project completion and elective work. Scholars also learn health services research methods, including theory, study design, and data analysis; fundamentals in health policy; biostatistics; scientific writing; and the application of these skills to conduct original research and to change health policy. Scholars participate in clinical programs at the UCLA Medical Center, Harbor UCLA Medical Center, King Drew Medical Center, the Veterans Administration Hospitals at Sepulveda and West Los Angeles, or their affiliated community programs. The UCLA Clinical Scholars Program community partners are: Carson-Wilmington Community Advisory Board, Healthy African-American Families, Behavioral Health Services, L.A. County Department of Mental Health, L.A. County Department of Health Services, L.A. County Department of Public Health, Los Angeles Unified School District, Mid-Valley Family Health Center, QueensCare indigent health care program, UCLA Health System, Venice Family Clinic, and the Veterans Administration.

Applicants must have completed their residency training prior to entering the program (except for surgeons who have a required research experience in their residency), have an interest in clinical epidemiology, health services research, or health policy research and intend to use their combined clinical and research skills to make change at either the community or policy level. All appointments begin July 1st. Recruitment begins in the winter, 18 months prior to admission to the program. Applications and all supporting materials should be received by February 29th in order to ensure that interviews will be completed by April 1st.