Research During Medical Residency
A How to Guide for Residents and Faculty Mentors
- 306 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
About This Book
This book is a guide for medical residents and faculty in the fundamentals of clinical research, publication practices, and conference skills. It offers advice on how to incorporate scholarly activities into training routines, so the process becomes more manageable and less burdensome. Suggestions for pursuing other scholarly activities, outside of clinical research, are also offered.
Participation in research and other scholarly activities is a requirement for graduation from medical residency programs in the United States and many other countries. Faculty physicians who train residents are also required to produce annual scholarly work. Adding scholarship onto an already long list of requirements often feels a bit daunting to medical residents and the faculty who teach them. Fortunately, there are many forms of scholarly activity, including basic and clinical research, quality improvement projects, and educational assessments, so everyone can find interesting and feasible projects to complete.
This valuable reference provides users with a reliable source to turn to whenever they have questions on how to develop, conduct, publish, or present a research project. Written with the perspective of busy faculty and residents in mind, the content balances the need for enough detail to be instructive with the need for quick access to key points.
Frequently asked questions
Information
Chapter 1 Introduction: Developing Ways to Incorporate Scholarly Activity into Clinical Training and Practice
- Choose a form of scholarly activity that fits your personality, interests, and resources.
- Develop projects that are attractive to you and beneficial to your field.
- Design studies that can be completed given your available resources.
- Spend time reading the literature.
- It takes a bit of effort to develop an idea into a worthwhile project.
- Ideas are revised multiple times before implementing a project.
Box 1.1 The Many Forms of Scholarly Activities: Choose What Works for You and Plan AccordinglyIn addition to clinical research, scholarly activities include quality improvement (QI) or quality assurance (QA) projects, and education assessments (see References and Resources).In the United States, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) requires annual scholarly activity reports from residents and their faculty mentors (Tables 1.1 and 1.2). Programs in other countries have their own guidelines and requirements.
Table 1.1 ACGME Resident Scholarly Activities 1. Publications with PMID 4. Chapters in textbooks 2. Other publications 5. Participated in research (Yes/No) 3. Conference presentations 6. Teaching presentations (Yes/No)All residents and fellows must participate in scholarly activity prior to graduation. Six categories of scholarly activity are recorded for each resident or fellow annually. The identification number(s) for publications cited in PubMed (the PMID) are listed, and the total number of other publications and the number of presentations at regional, national, or international conferences are reported. Whether the resident participated in research or teaching is also noted.
Table 1.2 ACGME Faculty Scholarly Activities 1. Publications with PMID 6. Chapters or textbooks 2. Peer-reviewed publications without a PMID 7. Grants with leadership role (e.g., Principal Investigator (PI), Co-PI, site director) Yes/No 3. Non peer-reviewed publications, item writing (e.g., board exam questions) 8. Leadership role in international, national, state, regional medical organizations; reviewer or editorial board of peer-reviewed journal Yes/No 4. Conference presentations5. Other presentations (e.g., Grand Rounds, invited lectures) 9. Coordinator of seminars, conference series, or courses for medical students, residents, fellows, or other health professionals outside of program didactics/conferences Yes/No For faculty, the annual report to the ACGME includes a chart with nine categories. All PMIDs are listed in the first category. The number of other publications and presentations are then listed under the appropriate categories (categories 2ā6). Faculty also indicate whether they held grant leadership, committee leadership, or peer-review roles, or coordinated formal conferences or courses outside of their residency program. Details of what activities to include under each category are listed in ACGME Common Program Requirements (see References and Resources).PMID (PubMed Identification number): the number assigned to articles listed in the PubMed database (see Chapter 2).Due to the nature of scholarship, no individual produces work in every category each year. For residents and faculty reporting to the ACGME, most list accomplishments in different categories annually. For example, a resident may participate in teaching in year one, start working on a research project in year two, and present a poster in year three. A faculty member might receive a grant, present posters on that work for two years, then publish a paper. Another may be involved in peer review each year, co-author a poster with residents annually, and publish a new book chapter every few years. A third might give Grand Round lectures and coordinate a course every year, and periodically present or publish on projects related to assessment of learning outcomes. Some may prefer to focus on QI projects and regularly present findings at regional meetings. Thus, there are many ways to meet the requirements simply by pursuing areas of interest.It is always helpful to track your expected accomplishments to ensure you meet annual program and institutional requirements.Depending on the specialty and institutional requirements, residents or fellows may be expected to present at a conference, prepare a manuscript for publication, or write a literature review.Note: Residents and faculty should work with the program director and program coordinator to identify acceptable forms of scholarly activity and establish timelines for completion.Tip: Check that you will have at least one form of scholarly activity completed by the eighth month of each academic year. If you discover you do not have any scholarly activities for that year, you will have four months to accomplish something relevant.Hint: You are unlikely to complete a new scholarly activity in the final weeks of the academic year. Plan accordingly.
1.1 Turn Your Interests into Scholarly Work
Consider the Questions You Ask and the Interests You Have
Table of contents
- Cover
- Half-Title
- Title
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- PREFACE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- CONTRIBUTORS
- 1 INTRODUCTION: DEVELOPING WAYS TO INCORPORATE SCHOLARLY ACTIVITY INTO CLINICAL TRAINING AND PRACTICE
- 2 LITERATURE SEARCHES: FINDING WHAT IS KNOWN AND UNKNOWN ABOUT A TOPIC
- 3 CRITICALLY READING RESEARCH ARTICLES: FORMING OPINIONS AND INTERPRETING DATA
- 4 BASIC RESEARCH DESIGN: DEVELOPING RESEARCH IDEAS INTO MEANINGFUL PROJECTS
- 5 THE STUDY POPULATION: FINDING AND ENROLLING PARTICIPANTS THAT FIT THE STUDY QUESTION
- 6 COLLECTING DATA YOU CAN TRUST
- 7 PREPARING STUDIES FOR STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
- 8 RESEARCH WITH HUMAN SUBJECTS: PREPARING AN APPLICATION FOR THE INSTITUTIONAL REVIEW BOARD
- 9 OBTAINING INFORMED CONSENT FOR RESEARCH STUDIES
- 10 MEDICAL WRITING: TIPS FOR PREPARING CLEAR, CONCISE DOCUMENTS FOR YOUR AUDIENCE
- 11 MEDICAL WRITING: JOURNAL RESEARCH ARTICLES
- 12 MEDICAL WRITING: CASE STUDIES
- 13 WRITING SUCCESSFUL GRANT PROPOSALS: TO FIT THE MISSION OF THE FUNDING AGENCY
- 14 WRITING BOOK CHAPTERS
- 15 ATTENDING AND PRESENTING AT SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCES: COMMON ELEMENTS
- 16 PREPARING AND GIVING EFFECTIVE POSTER PRESENTATIONS
- 17 PREPARING AND GIVING EFFECTIVE ORAL PRESENTATIONS
- 18 ORGANIZING A SUCCESSFUL LOCAL OR REGIONAL CONFERENCE
- INDEX