July 17, 2018
The College recently hosted the ACCP MeRIT and FIT programs. This is the third year that this program has been held at U-M Pharmacy.

The University of Michigan College of Pharmacy recently hosted the American College of Clinical Pharmacy (ACCP) Mentored Research Investigator Training (MeRIT) and Focused Investigator Training (FIT) programs. This is the third year that this program has been held at U-M Pharmacy.

The FIT Program is an intensive weeklong, hands-on program for pharmacist-investigators who are preparing to submit/re-submit an application for extramural funding as a principal investigator. Investigators are challenged to carefully examine research aims and explore individual professional research goals and, by the end of the program, have taken critical steps toward fine-tuning the application.

The MeRIT Program connects an accomplished ACCP-provided research mentor with a mentee and local advisor. Beginning with a weeklong immersion experience concurrent to the FIT Program, participants are mentored over two years through research design, data collection, results presentation, and manuscript preparation.

ACCP staff, including Sheldon Holstad and Carla Scarborough, organized the ACCP MeRIT and FIT programs, in collaboration with Dr. Karen Farris and staff from the U-M Department of Clinical Pharmacy (Jan Williams and Stasi Mehaffey). “ACCP FIT and MeRIT are a week-long boot camp, of sorts, for pharmacy faculty and we are happy to host them at U-M Pharmacy for the third year,” says Karen Farris, PhD, Charles R. Walgreen III Professor of Pharmacy Administration and Chair, Department of Clinical Pharmacy. “Mentors are paired with participants, and we are able to give back by helping young investigators develop research questions and the research approach. Participants go home with a proposal or aims page from FIT and a project plan in MeRIT. The latter also have on-going support for two years from mentors.”

Faculty mentees attending the program included: Scott Coon, Brandon Dionne, Kirk Evoy, David Foster, Crystal Howell, Anne Kugler, Anne Misher, Benyam Muluneh, Jennifer Pruskowski, and Christina Sherrill.

Faculty mentors attending the program were: Jennifer Cocohoba, Tom Dowling, Karen Farris, Stuart Haines, Charles Leonard, Robert Parker, Jo Ellen Rodgers, and Alan Zillich.