Student Research Shows Positive Outcomes from Summer Research Program

New Emphasis on Cancer-Related Research Explored

• By Ben Lawson
• July 22, 2026
• Research

Physician-scientists hold a unique role in the medical field. They balance patient care with conducting research. Physician-scientists spend much of their time in laboratories performing experiments to drive innovation across a wide range of medical treatments. But their numbers are declining.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reported on what they labeled “distressing trends” in 2014. The NIH Physician-Scientist Workforce Working Group completed a study that found the number of physicians focused on research had fallen, while the average age of physician-scientists continued to rise. And the number of younger researchers entering the field would not keep up with the number of retirees.

The good news is that medical student involvement in research is growing. The heightened interest encourages medical schools to develop programs that support student research plus faculty time for research and mentorship. The Medical Student Summer Research Program (MSSRP) at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) provides these opportunities, and new research shows positive outcomes.

Hosted by the TTUHSC School of Medicine, the 8-week program, from June through July, is for students who’ve completed their first year of medical school. They work under faculty supervision to conduct approved MSSRP projects. The medical students present their findings at TTUHSC Student Research Week the following spring.

A newly published program paper in the multidisciplinary journal Frontiers in Education examined the program’s quality, mentorship, scope of work and logistics. The MSSRP team evaluated student responses to an end-of-program survey. They analyzed data collected from 2020 to 2022.

The study, “Understanding Student Experiences in a Mentorship-Driven Summer Research Program: A Mixed-Methods Evaluation of Program Design and Student Satisfaction,” concluded that the program builds foundational research skills while meeting the needs of students with varying levels of experience. Authors went on to state that the program represents a scalable model for institutions seeking to strengthen early research engagement, promote scholarly productivity and cultivate a research-ready physician workforce. 

Funding for the study was supported by participating departments and the School of Medicine Dean’s Office as well as facilitated by the TTUHSC Rural Cancer Collaborative. Principal Investigator Leslie Shen, Ph.D., associate dean for research in the School of Medicine and director of the MSSRP, proposed engaging more students in cancer-related research. 

Shen is the lead principal investigator for the MSSRP-cancer program titled “Engaging Medical Students in Cancer Research.” In the funded program, Shen stated that “cancer and its correlates form a prominent part of our clinical outreach here at TTUHSC, especially as it pertains to our rural health initiatives. More opportunities to investigate it are needed. However, among our MSSRP projects, cancer-related research is poorly represented.”

Shen added that during the 2024 and 2025 program sessions, only 19 projects out of more than 200 were connected to cancer research. With funding support from the TTUHSC Rural Cancer Collaborative, there are 26 cancer-related projects this fiscal year. 

“Through the existing MSSRP platform and infrastructure described in this paper, we will continue working hard to make the MSSRP-cancer program as successful as possible,” Shen said.