VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System
Eastern Colorado Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center (EC-GRECC)
Postdoctoral Fellowship
20 August 2021
The VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System and the Eastern Colorado GRECC offer a two-year Advanced Geriatrics Fellowship. This fully accredited program is designed to prepare leaders for careers in aging-related geriatric/gerontology research.
On Eligibility
Eligible applicants include any “clinical” providers (physicians or specified non-physicians) who have completed their clinical training and are board certified or eligible in their subspecialty.
- Eligible non-physician candidates include individuals with advanced degrees in audiology, dentistry, nursing, optometry, pharmacy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, podiatry, psychology and speech pathology.
- Other “clinical” providers may be eligible on an individual basis.
While application is open to physician and non-physicians, with or without previous geriatric or gerontology training, the research itself must be aging related and highly relevant to Veteran populations. Applications that fall within the selected Eastern Colorado GRECC foci (gender-related health issues, treatment and complications of obesity, rehabilitation of older adults and palliative/end-of-life care) are highly encouraged, but this is not a requirement.
This two-year advanced research fellowship requires a minimum commitment of 75% of time toward research effort, which can be conducted at either the VA Eastern Colorado Health Care System (VA-ECHCS) or University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus (CU-AMC). All non-research (clinical) time must be conducted at the VA-ECHCS.
On Mentors
The applicant(s) selected for the position will work with faculty mentors to develop an individualized learning plan, based on previous experience, for didactic sessions in core research skills and geriatric topics specific to the proposed research project.
To help you find a mentor who meets your interests, we have created two innovative tools related to grants and publications. The VA created an online repository that collects researchers publications and grants and then assigns them meaningful tags. We have gathered this resource specific to our PIs, who are also our mentors.
Visiting the Research overview page you can see the list of research categories. Each category heading can be clicked on to reveal the PI/metors who have had grants using that category.
The same is true for publications, visiting the Publications page you will see the list of publication categories. Each category heading can be clicked on to reveal the PI/metors who have published within that category.
CU-AMC and VA-ECHCS offer a wide variety of research, clinical and educational resources that will further allow customization of a fellow’s two-year curriculum. In addition to research skills and geriatrics knowledge cores, each fellow will participate in leadership, medical education and quality improvement curriculum. Each topic will include early core didactics followed by experiential learning and application of techniques as the fellowship progresses.
Please take a look at our current fellows and their work. Feel free to contact any of them to answer your questions.
On the Application Timeline
The application requires an initial one-page letter of intent outlining the applicant’s educational history and project aims and hypotheses, and mentors – due February 1, 2022.
The EC-GRECC Executive Committee will review the applications for eligibility, scientific merit, aging and veteran-related focus, and likelihood for career success. Selected applicants will be invited to submit a three-page description of their research and career development/mentoring plan, NIH style biosketches and two letters of support – due March 15, 2022.
Final awards will be made on May 1, 2022. Target start date is July 1, 2022.
The awardees’ performance and progress will be evaluated by the Committee at the end of Year 1 to determine Year 2 funding.
More Information and Application
For information on eligibility:
https://www.va.gov/oaa/specialfellows/programs/SF_AdvGeriatric.asp
To apply contact:
Norma Rogers, Program Coordinator
Eastern Colorado Geriatric Research, Education and Clinical Center
ECHCS Rocky Mountain VA Medical Center
Norma.Rogers@va.gov
720-857-2800
