Training Tomorrow’s Injury Control Researchers

THE UAB ICRC is Deeply Committed to enhancing the awareness of injury control among health care professionals and the general public by disseminating information it continues to learn. These ongoing efforts of training and education include sponsoring interns in the UAB ICRC, hosting a variety of seminars and conferences, university courses, mentoring and fellowships. For example, soon after the ICRC was established in the late 1980s, center leadership began working with deans and interested faculty from various UAB schools to develop courses providing injury control concepts and principles for their curricula.

Partnering with UAB's school of Public health In 1991 Dr. Bill King, an ICRC senior scientist, and Dr. Russ Fine began teaching the first ICRC-sponsored course in the School of Public Health, EPI 603: Injury-Epidemiologic Principles and Prevention Strategies, on an annual basis. In the mid-1990s, Dr. John Waterbor, an ICRC senior scientist and associate profes- sor of epidemiology in UAB's School of Public Health, assumed Dr. King's teaching responsibilities. Dr. Waterbor, Dr. Fine and Carrie Connolly continue to lead this highly popular course, enrolling larger numbers of students each year.

Executive leadership of the ICRC also developed a doctoral seminar course entitled EPI 790: Special Topics in Epidemiology. The course addresses concepts and methods of intentional injury and violence prevention methods, as well as development and evaluation techniques for preventive strategies.

Partnering with UAB's school of engineering The UAB ICRC's affiliation with the School of Engineering has resulted in a number of courses that have been developed, revised or enhanced to expose engineering students at all levels, from undergraduate to doctoral, to injury biomechanics and other engineering issues relevant to injury prevention and control.

ICRC-driven courses in UAB's School of Engineering include BME 498, 598: Biomedical Product Development; BME 630, 730: Joint Mechanics; BME 633, 733: Biomechanics: Tissue Mechanics I; ME 631, 731: Computational Structural Mechanics I; and ME 684, 784: Advanced Visualization and Virtual Reality. In addi- tion, multiple master's theses and doctoral dissertations have been produced from ICRC-sponsored studies and activities. The UAB ICRC is gratified by the success of these students and proud to have played a part in training future biomechanists in the field of injury control.