We highly value and strongly encourage scholarly activity during residency. Our goal is to help support residents in: finding mentors, critically appraising available medical literature, identifying areas for improvement in care, formulating answerable questions, developing and implementing related scholarly activity, and disseminating findings to a wide audience. This pursuit not only helps inform career planning, but also creates the opportunity for residents to contribute to the advancement of the medical field, and overall patient care, early in their careers.
Scholarly work curriculum and requirements
We encourage residents to complete at least one scholarly project during residency, though residents can complete as many projects as their schedule allows. Statistical and logistical support is provided throughout as needs arise.
We have a broad definition of scholarly activity which includes literature reviews, case reports, basic science research, quality improvement initiatives, epidemiological studies, clinical trials, medical education development, health equity and disparities research, and advocacy work.
We have full integrated opportunities for scholarly activity built within our curriculum. For instance, in their PGY-2 and PGY-3 years, residents choose a case to present during our hour-long department-wide Morbidity, Mortality, and Improvement (MMI) Conference, either at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center or at the VA Medical Center. We also have scheduled didactic time for patient safety rounds during which residents continue to discuss and propose opportunities for improvement with core faculty and we have been able to enact quality improvement initiatives based on this feedback.
Our academic half-day curriculum includes sessions on research methods, biostatistics, and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) process. All interns rotate through a dedicated one-week Research Training Module, a self-directed curriculum designed to introduce clinical research design. During this time, interns are relieved of most clinical duties, except continuity clinic and academic half-day sessions, allowing them to: 1) complete IRB training; 2) meet with mentors and residency leaders to refine project ideas; and 3) review resources on study design, research ethics, and manuscript preparation (e.g., CITI training modules). If more dedicated time is desired, residents can allocate up to three months of non-clinical elective time over the course of their training for scholarly activity, with Program Director approval.
Most residents meet early in their residency with our director of resident research, Dr. Ali Ashare, and complete case reports and/or original research and QI work in their chosen subspecialty, or area of interest such as medical education. Dr. Ashare, along with Dr. Atkins, Dr. Francis, and the chief medical residents, help connect residents with mentors and projects.
Dissemination of resident scholarly work
Our residents have presented at various local, national, and even international conferences including recently at: The American Thoracic Society International Conference, Society of General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting, Digestive Disease Week, Annual Meeting on Gynecologic Cancer, Academic Internal Medicine Week, American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session, American College of Rheumatology Convergence, American Society of Hematology Annual Meeting and Exposition, Northern New England Clinical Oncology Society Annual and Spring Meetings, American College of Gastroenterology Annual Scientific Meeting, American College of Physicians Annual Scientific Meeting (located in Lebanon, New Hampshire), American College of Physicians Internal Medicine Meeting, Heart Failure Society of America Annual Scientific Meeting, and more. Additionally we host an annual Residency Research Day, held in May, which highlights our residents’ achievements via poster presentation. Every resident is expected to present at this conference once during residency, most commonly by displaying a poster. Three projects are selected to be orally presented at our department-wide Medicine Grand Rounds.
Residents who are accepted to present at a conference or participate in advocacy days are provided days off for the conference and for travel if needed, which do not come out of flex days and are separate from other vacations available to residents. Residents also have available educational and conference stipends each year of their residency.
Our residents have had multiple manuscript acceptances and publications, often as first-author. Our residents’ scholarly work has been accepted into various high impact factor journals. Recent resident work has been published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Respiratory Research, the Journal of Rheumatology, the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Opportunities for advocacy work
Our rural location lends itself to various projects focused on advocacy and health equity scholarly activity. Projects can focus on access to care, social determinants of health, and population health, to name a few. The advocacy-focused scholarly activity led by one of our graduated residents ultimately resulted in the development of a novel, local advocacy day, through collaborations with the New Hampshire Medical Society and the New Hampshire Chapter of the American College of Physicians. This is a new and now annual opportunity for residents to attend hearings at the New Hampshire State House in Concord, where residents can: 1) meet physician-legislators; 2) learn more about the legislative process and key ongoing legislation pertaining to healthcare; and 3) hone skills as a physician-advocate while learning more about advocacy 101.
Any questions?
We hope this provided a glimpse into the plethora of opportunities and support available at our program. Please feel free to reach out with any additional questions about resident scholarly activity.