Medical Innovators Development Program (MIDP)
The Medical Innovators Development Program (MIDP) at VUSM is a unique, 4-year MD track that trains future physician-innovators through design-thinking, clinical immersion, and hands-on industry experience—equipping graduates to lead in medicine and beyond.
Innovation Forums
Link Up with Leaders
Combine your MD studies with weekly MIDP seminars led by visionaries in different fields, to spark innovation and discovery that translates to clinical settings and beyond.
Ideas in Action
Create Beyond the Classroom
Tackle real-world health care problems: design, test, and pitch solutions with expert mentors. Then take your idea further through hands-on innovation.
Right-Brained Activities
Engage Your Creativity
Take a break from left-brain learning and gain fresh perspectives with MIDP's monthly events like nature walks, poetry workshops, or visits to Nashville cultural institutions.
MIDP gives us tools--design thinking, empathy-based interviewing, consumer development--but it has also given me confidence and motivation to think, ‘I can actually do this.’
Program Curriculum
Innovation Forums
Year 1
Combine your M1 Foundations of Medical Knowledge training with in-depth forums led by speakers from academia, industry, or entrepreneurship.
Innovation Activism
Year 2
Your year-long Innovation Activism course gives you closer looks at solving clinical problems you encounter in your M2 clerkships.
IDEA Lab & Entrepreneurship
Year 3
Develop solutions to issues you encountered in clinical spaces, taking them from concept to prototype to pitch meetings, while learning the business side of innovation.
Industry Immersion
Year 4
Join an industry-level innovation team, anywhere in the U.S., for September of your M4 year for an experience unique to your interests and strengths.
Recent News
Program Leadership Team
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Ryan Buckley, MD
MIDP Director
IDEA Lab Instructor
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Trent Rosenbloom, MD, MPH, FACMI, FAMIA
MIDP Associate Director
Professor & Vice Chair of Faculty Affairs, Department of Biomedical
Informatics
Director, Clinical Effectiveness Research for VHAN
Director, My Health at Vanderbilt
Professor, Internal Medicine & Pediatrics
Professor, Department of Nursing -
Charleson S. Bell, PhD
Innovation Activism and Altruism Instructor
Research Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Director of Entrepreneurship and Biomedical Innovation, The Wond'ry -
Betsy Sloan, MA
MIDP Program Coordinator
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Melanie Schuele, PhD
MIDP Portfolio Coach
Director, Child Language and Literacy Laboratory
Professor, Special Education, and Psychology & Human Development -
André Churchwell, MD
Leadership Team
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Ali Coffey
Leadership Team
Connect With Us
Interested in the MIDP track of Vanderbilt’s Doctor of Medicine degree? Take the next step and request information about the program or email us with questions.