What is Utah StARR?
The Utah Stimulating Access to Research in Residency (Utah StARR) is designed to prepare outstanding residents for a career in academic medicine and clinical investigation by providing them with opportunities to learn and practice clinical, transitional, health service, and community-engaged research skills during their residency training. Utah StARR will provide an early "on-ramp" to research careers for competitive academic faculty positions.
Participating residency programs:
- Family Medicine
- Internal Medicine
- Pediatrics
- Combined Medicine-Pediatrics
- Obstetrics and Gynecology
- Neurology
- Occupational Medicine
The program main components are: career mentoring, individual development plan, non-degree coursework, research seminars, grant writing, pre-submission grant review, pre-award support and writing workshops. Click here for an overview of the Utah StARR resources.
Because the recruitment and training of clinician-researchers is such a high priority at the current time, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has implemented a loan-forgiveness program for doctors who commit to a career in clinical research. Individuals in the Utah StARR program may consider applying for the loan-forgiveness program when their residency is completed.
Additional information about the program or information on application procedures, please visit our application information page or contact Quinn Tanner, Program Manager if you are interested.
Utah StARR resident investigators Victoria Vardell and Alex Zheutlin led the 10/27/2022 Internal Medicine Grand Rounds. The title of their presentation was "Future StARRs: Highlighting the Work of our Senior Residents in the Utah StARR Program". You can view the recording of their talk here, or by visiting the Internal Medicine Grand Rounds archive: https://medicine.utah.edu/internal-medicine/grand-rounds

Dr. Alex Zheutlin is the first-author on a publication in the American Journal of Preventive Cardiology. The article, titled “Clinical encounter length and initiation of statin therapy for primary prevention among adults with elevated atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease risk,” found that only 53% of US adults ≥ 40 years with diabetes from 2015 to 2018 were on statin therapy despite over 90% having healthcare. This is significant, given that there are decades of evidence making the case that statin medication reduces the risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD). Read Dr. Zheutlin’s publication here: 10.1016/j.ajpc.2022.100450
To access archived scholar news, go to: https://medicine.utah.edu/utah-starr/scholar-news-archive

UStARR mentor Adam Bress, PharmD, MS has received the Department of Internal Medicine Outstanding Faculty Mentorship Award. Recipients of this award must be nominated by PGY3 internal medicine residents and is selected based on their submitted comments. One such comment stated, "From the beginning of our relationship, Adam has helped to direct me to projects that were intersting and meaningful but would also allow me to develop skills working with different data sources and applied methodology." Congratulations Dr. Bress!
To access archived scholar news, go to: https://medicine.utah.edu/utah-starr/scholar-news-archive
Program Directors
Kola Okuyemi, MD, MPH
Professor and Chair
Department of Family and Preventive Medicine
University of Utah Health
Molly Conroy, MD, MPH
Professor and Division Chief
General Internal Medicine
University of Utah Health
Contact Us
Questions?
Contact Quinn Tanner
Email: UtahStARR@utah.edu
Phone: 801-386-3414