Center for Surgical Trials and Evidence-based Practice (C-STEP)

The Center for Surgical Trials and Evidence-based Practice (C-STEP) at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) is a multi-disciplinary program designed to advance evidence-based practice in surgery by providing young faculty and surgical trainees with formal training in clinical research, mentorship, resources, and funding to perform high quality research.

The goals of C-STEP are:

  • To foster and develop surgical faculty, staff, and trainees (including medical students) interested in clinical research.
  • To advance the surgical evidence base and its application in clinical practice.

C-STEP provides program to medical students, surgical residents, and young surgical faculty including:

  • Fellowship in Clinical Research
  • Advanced Degree Programs
  • Focused Research in Surgery for Medical Students
  • Clinical Research Lecture Series
  • Clinical Research Roundtables
  • Pilot Grant Programs
  • Surgical Journal Club
  • Clinical Research Symposia
  • Research Network

Fellowship in Clinical Research

The C-STEP Clinical Research Fellowship is accepting beginning July 1, 2021. The 2-year program is established for surgical residents interested in a career in academic clinical research with a focus in pediatric surgery. Fellows will obtain a Master’s Degree in a Clinical Research established by the Center for Evidenced-based Medicine and Clinical Research at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. The Master’s program curriculum focuses on training clinical investigators in designing and conducting patient-oriented research of high quality. In addition to the educational foundation, fellows will work with established faculty mentors with advanced degrees in clinical research to develop expertise in the scientific research process. This would include identifying key problems in pediatric surgery, gathering and analyzing the current evidence and literature, and developing/implementing a clinical research study. In addition, fellows will work with mentors to learn the mechanisms of becoming a funded clinical researcher. Applicants should have completed the PGY-2 year of an ACGME-accredited general surgery residency program by the start of the fellowship. Pay and benefits will commensurate with NIH guidelines for PGY level.

Please visit theCenter for Clinical Research and Evidenced-Based Medicinefor more information regarding the Master’s Degree in Clinical Research.

To see a list of selected C-STEP publications,click here.

Summer Research Program

Lecture Series in Clinical Surgical Research

Every summer, the surgery and pediatric surgery faculty have MS-1 students work with them through the NIH-funded Summer Research Program offered through the medical school. Through C-STEP, we plan to augment the summer research program’s seminar series by providing a 9-week series on clinical research with a surgical focus. All students are welcome to attend. Due to COVID-19, the lectures will be held at 2:00pm on Thursdays via WebEx.

2021 Lecture Schedule

June 3– Developing a research hypothesis – what is a PICO question, and how to develop one? (Lecturer: John Harvin)

June 10– Now that I have question, how do I do a literature search? (Lecturer: Travis Holder & Emma Silva)

June 17– How do I appraise the literature? (Lecturer: Mary Austin)

June 24– Rescheduled to July 8 at 3:00pm

July 1NO LECTURE

July 8双节课一天
2-3pm – Translational Research (Lecturer: Matthew Harting)
3-4pm – What study design should I use? (Lecturer: Curtis Wray)

July 15– Now that I have results, how do I write an abstract and make a poster presentation? (Lecturer: Linda Li)

July 22双节课一天
2-3pm – How do I give a presentation? (Lecturer: Akemi Kawaguchi)
3-4pm – What basic statistics do I need to know? (Lecturer: Lillian Kao)

July 29– Student Quick Shots (1)

August 5– Student Quick Shots (2)

Our Residents

Name Graduation Year Faculty Mentor
Shah Dodwad 2022 Lillian Kao, MD
Brittany Hegde 2022 KuoJen Tsao, MD
Pediatric Surgery
Heather Kregel 2022 Lillian Kao, MD
Hope Feldman 2022 胸外科
Alfredo Cepeda 2022 Matthew Greives, MD
Nate Deboever 2023 胸外科
James Klugh 2023 John Harvin, MD
Lillian Kao, MD

Faculty

Lillian S. Kao, MD, MS(Co-Director) General Surgery and Critical Care Surgery
Kevin P. Lally, MD, MS(Co-Director) Pediatric Surgery
Mary Austin, MD, MPH Pediatric Surgery
Marty Blakely, MD, MS Pediatric Surgery
George Chang, MD, MS Surgical Oncology
Bryan Cotton, MD, MPH Acute Care Surgery
Charles S. Cox, Jr., MD Pediatric Surgery
Clara Fowler, Sr. Librarian Literature Appraisal
Maureen Goode, PhD CCTS
Matthew Greives, MD, MS Pediatric Plastic & Craniofacial Surgery
Matthew T. Harting, MD Pediatric Surgery
Akemi Kawaguchi, MD Pediatric Surgery
Kathleen Kennedy, MD, MPH(Program Advisor) 新生儿学,女士在临床研究项目beplay苹果手机能用吗
Pam Lally, MD Pediatrics, Database Design
Charles C. Miller III, PhD Epidemiology, CV Surgery
Eric Thomas, MD, MPH Internal Medicine, Health Quality and Safety
KuoJen Tsao, MD Pediatric Surgery
Jon Tyson, MD, MPH(Program Advisor) Neonatology, Center for Clinical Research and EBM
Curtis Wray, MD Surgical Oncology

Contact Us:

For more information regarding C-STEP and its fellowship programs, please contact:
KuoJen Tsao, MD
KuoJen.Tsao@uth.tmc.edu
or
Lillian Kao, MD, MS
Lillian.S.Kao@uth.tmc.edu