The Internal Medicine Residency Program is committed to helping residents develop their career through development of academic skills.
We believe that learning research methods during the program makes residents better consumers of medical literature, helps with career decision making, and generates new knowledge.
During their residency here, residents are required to complete an academic project or scholarly activity undertaken to ask and attempt to answer a specific question. The project may take the form of a critical literature review with or without a case report, an original basic science project, a quality improvement or epidemiologic project, or an independent or collaborative clinical trial.
During the intern year we provide several research specific sessions during our academic half day program. These review topics such as the importance of research during residency and the role research fulfills in a variety of academic medicine careers. They also cover some of the practical aspects of completing research during residency such as formulating an important answerable question and identifying a mentor.
Also during the intern year, each resident is assigned 2 weeks to complete the Research Training Module, a self-directed curriculum with specific reading and problems sets about clinical research design. During this research block, your only assigned clinical duties are your continuity clinic. The other nine half-days are dedicated to:
- Completing IRB training
- Meeting with possible mentors to discuss projects
- Meeting with a residency leader to begin to identify potential projects and mentors.
- Reviewing our research curriculum regarding research methods, study design, starting a project, available mentors, research ethics, funding, and writing up results. This is available through online resources and a supplied textbook.
Work on the research project can be spread across the 3 years of residency training, although we recognize the importance of having completed academic work early in residency that can be highlighted on fellowship applications and at fellowship or job interviews in your PGY 3 year. Non-clinical elective time (up to 3 months over 3 years) can be devoted to your research project with prior approval from the Program Director. Statistical and logistical support are available to help residents.
In the spring of the senior resident year, each resident is asked to submit a written summary of their project in the form of a poster presentation. Residents are also encouraged to submit their work for presentation at other regional or national meetings, and funding is awarded to projects accepted for presentation to defray travel costs. On Residency Research Day in May each year, several outstanding presentations are selected for oral presentation at Medical Grand Rounds.
For future physician scientists we offer a short track program which can be entered either prior to or during the PGY-1 year. A specialized mentoring program is available for those interested in this opportunity.
