Extract from: https://www.samrc.ac.za/news/building-capacity-and-sustainability-health-sciences-through-clinical-research

Building capacity and sustainability in Health Sciences through Clinical Research

As part of SAMRC’s efforts to build capacity for the long-term sustainability of South African health research, the Division of Research Capacity Development (RCD) offers research grants and scholarships to researchers in the clinical or health sciences. One such programme is the SAMRC Clinicians Researcher Programme scholarship funding, which aims to develop a cadre of highly trained clinician-scientists who excel in careers in medicine as well as occupy leadership positions in academic, clinical and research sectors in the future.

Clinician-scientists are individuals who are trained in both clinical medicine and scientific methods. The programme funds PhD scholars who hold MBChB or BDS qualifications. The caliber of funded Clinician Scientists can enrich research that is relevant to the South African context and the ability to drive key advances in the clinical practice in South African health priorities. Several of the recipients of the SAMRC Clinicians Researcher Programme are mentioned below.
 

• Dr Carolette Synders (University of Pretoria)
  is a medical doctor based at the Sports, Exercise Medicine, and Lifestyle Institute. With the rise in COVID-19 infections and the lack of clinical data relating to athlete safety guidelines with return to training, this prompted her work on her PhD entitled “Return to sport guidelines in athletes with selected acute respiratory infections (including COVID-19) based on clinical criteria and laboratory investigations.“ Her work thus far has been accepted for a poster and a clinical case in-person presentation at the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Annual Meeting of 2022. Furthermore, she was awarded the Dr Lisa Krivickas Clinician travel award to fund her travel to San Diego, California for the ACSM annual meeting to present her work. She has also published in the BJSM journal, a highly rated sports medicine journal and has other publications in the pipeline. A message from Dr Synders to future PhD and MSc students is this, “Find a topic you are passionate about. Be teachable. Take any opportunity to enhance yourself as a scholar, researcher, and clinician.”