Promoting scholarship in a community-based internal medicine residency

Figures & data

Table 1. Research director qualifications and responsibilities.

Qualifications:

(1) Qualifications for appointment at the rank of Associate or Professor in School of Medicine.

(2) PhD or MD with extensive and ongoing research activity.

(3) Excellent communication skills.

(4) Commitment to education for medical students, residents and practicing physicians.

(5) Twenty percent time commitment.

Responsibilities to the Department of Internal Medicine:

(1) Review faculty appointments and make recommendations to the Appointment Committee.

(2) Mentor and assist faculty in research and scholarly activity.

(3) Participate in departmental and residency educational programs, committees and meetings.

(4) Provide a yearly written report to the chair summarizing resident scholarship.

Responsibilities to the Internal Medicine Residency Program:

(1) Accountable to the Residency Program Director for residents’ research experiences.

(2) Develop a curriculum which will provide residents the ability to successfully answer examination questions and to apply this knowledge to the review, interpretation and critique of the literature so as to achieve successful practice of evidence-base medicine.

(3) Match residents with faculty mentors for scholarly projects and research experiences.

(4) Counsel and mentor residents and faculty in the conduct of scholarly projects and research including issues in the use of human subjects, hypothesis development, research design, methods, data analysis, manuscript preparation and submission of scholarly articles for publication.

(5) Coordinate the research elective and participate in teaching and supervision of residents in the research setting

(6) Motivate clinical faculty and residents to actively engage in scholarly activities which are of interest to them.

(7) Mentor Residency Program faculty and residents to navigate through the IRB process, guide them through the research process and assist with writing to publication.

Table 2. Comparison of scholarship for two cohorts of residents.

Measure	Cohort 1	Cohort 2
Number of residents	47	46
Number publications*	12	39
Publications/resident	0.23	0.85
Residents published	7	20
% Residents published	14.8	43.4
Faculty co-authors	18	80
Faculty/paper	1.5	2.1
Residents planning Fellowship papers**	–	11/14 (78.6%)
Residents not planning Fellowship papers	–	7/32 (21.9%)

* p = 0.002, **p = 0.001