Integration of Bio-medical Research Training into the pre-graduate Medical Curriculum

Physician-scientists have always brought a unique perspective to biomedical research that is inspired by their personal experience in caring for patients.

Indeed, throughout history, physicians have played a central role in advancing the science of medicine as the “translators” of medical research.

With an outstanding leadership team from The Dept. of Medicine & Surgery from University of Milano-Bicocca, University of Milan and Humanitas University, we envisioned and launched “Virgilio Program”, the first joint attempt of leading Universities in Italy in implementing an innovative pre-graduate training track in biomedical research for medical students.

The program funded by Fondazione Cariplo aims to develop and train medical students who are interested in deepening their understanding of research methods and ethics and the link between basic sciences and clinical sciences research.

Fostering and improving medical research education is crucial to biomedical research and clinical patient treatment. Unfortunately, Medical education in Italy/Europe even today insufficiently incorporates research skills into its classic syllabus, and opportunities for multi-disciplinarity, linking other fields of knowledge with potential links to medicine are scarce.

Virgilio Program attempts to bridge this gap by incorporating research education into the existing pre-graduate medicine curriculum, by creating a new and novel training program that can become a model for others to replicate.
It’s an exciting time for us and I invite your interest to explore this program better.

Prof. Silvia Brunelli 

Program Director, Virgilio