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Residency Research

The Internal Medicine Residency Program is committed to training residents in the skills of research. We believe that learning research methods during residency makes learners a better consumer of the medical literature and helps with career decision making, in addition to generating new knowledge.

During residency at DHMC, houestaff are required to complete a research project: 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, each resident is assigned two weeks dedicated to completing 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 9 half days are dedicated to:

• Reviewing our research curriculum regarding research methods, study design, how to start a project, available mentors, research ethics, funding, and writing up results.  This is available through online resources and a supplied textbook.
• Completing IRB training.
• Meeting with our Residency Research Director, Dr. Mary-Margaret Andrews to begin to identify potential projects and mentors. Subsequently, the Research Director is available to review a project’s progress and help to identify forums for communicating project results.
• Meeting with possible mentors to discuss projects.

Work on the research project can be spread across the three years of residency training. Non-Clinical Elective time (up to three months over three years) can be devoted to your research project with prior approval from the Program Director and Research 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.

A list of examples of recent resident projects follows.