Teaching Translation and Teamwork: A foundation for doctoral education

This presentation will discuss the development, pilot, and evaluation of a course focused on fostering a translational imperative among all first year doctoral students in the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Through developing a common understanding of the foci and expertise of each public health discipline, this course also laid the foundation for students to move beyond disciplinary silos common to doctoral work and enrich their studies through multiple perspectives. The course was comprised of 26 first year doctoral students from across the school and met weekly for 50 minutes. Weekly sessions included interactive lessons from translation-focused public health faculty and practitioners across the field. Course assignments focused on communicating about research with a variety of audiences and included an elevator speech (describing one's work in 30 seconds or less for a public health professional, a lay person, and a 3rd grader) and a class blog post focused on putting research into action (phresearchaction.blogspot.com). 95% of students reported learning a great deal in the course and that it challenged and stimulated their thinking. Nearly all students found the collaborative learning, communication, and translation-focused aspects of the class helpful and motivating. In sum, this course prepared students to understand the language and translational approaches of several disciplines comprising the field of public health (in academia and practice). This presentation describes the key components of the course and aims to assist other doctoral programs in creating a similar foundation to foster interdisciplinary work and translation of research into practice.