On Saturday, March 11, 2023, the MSTP held its annual Spring Retreat, titled, "The Art and Science of Communication.” The retreat focused on communication and presentation skills for physician scientists – to effectively convey information to medical, scientific, and general public audiences.

Some highlights included:

• Fantastic guest speaker presentations on networking and career building, communicating science to the general public, and how to pitch research for funding like an entrepreneur!
• Peer-advice "Hot Topic" presentations and "M4 Pearls of Wisdom"
• Interactive activities – including the following:
• A session in which students worked together to finesse their "Research Elevator Talks"
• An entertaining "Shark Tank: Battle of the Cohorts!" research pitch competition, in which students exercised their creativity and communication skills – and also enjoyed some good laughs!

We were honored to be joined by the following special guest speakers:

• Darcy Krueger, MD, PhD: Director, Tuberous Sclerosis Clinic; Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics
• Will Zacharias, MD, PhD: Graduate Advisor, MSTP; Assistant Professor, UC Department of Pediatrics, UC Department of Internal Medicine
• Trisha Wise-Draper, MD, PhD (UC MSTP Alumnus): Associate Professor, Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology, UC College of Medicine; Section Head of Medical Oncology; Head and Neck Center of Excellence Co-Leader, University of Cincinnati Cancer Center

And all the below featured student presenters were excellent!

• Joseph Verry (M1); Joe Moscatelli (M1); Griffin McDaniel (M2); Jennifer Wayland (G1); Simon Han (G2); Alex Feldman (G3); Tiffany Shi (G3); Zana Percy (G5), Kim Kraus (M3), Ayad Ali (M4), Rohit Rao (M4), Brian Upton (M4), and Ben Wissel (M4).

The retreat weekend concluded with a student social outing at Top Golf, where everyone relaxed and socialized, enjoyed tasty food, and most importantly - just had FUN!

Many thanks to the Enrichment Committee for all their hard work to put together such a special and memorable weekend: including Akshata Rudrapatna (M2); Sydney Treichel (G1); Amanda McGann (G3); AJ Singh (G6) - under the leadership of Donald Gilbert, MD, MS (MSTP Associate Director of Curriculum Development) and Sara Cohen (MSTP Program Manager).