TY - JOUR
T1 - Mid-career research training for the generalist physician
T2 - Case study of a balancing act
AU - Brand, Donald A.
AU - Patrick, Patricia A.
AU - Grayson, Martha S.
N1 - Funding Information:
Our Primary Care Research Fellowship, a mid-career faculty development program for general internists, general pediatricians, and family practitioners, provided research training to nearly two dozen physicians, mostly full-time faculty at New York Medical College. The fellowship attained its capacity enrollment of four fellows per year for 5 successive years and two fellows in the 6th year, despite a lack of grant funding beyond the 3rd year to offset participants’ protected time. After that, departments continued allowing their generalist faculty paid release time to participate without receiving compensation for the decreased availability of these faculty to perform other academic duties—an uncommon commitment.1,3 At minimum, therefore, our experience demonstrated the feasibility of a part-time, locally administered, mid-career research training program for academic primary care physicians. With the encouragement and support of their departments, faculty managed the balancing act of teaching and caring for patients while learning how to do research.
Funding Information:
This study was sponsored, in part, by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Generalist Physician Initiative and by award #2D54HP00022 from the Health Resources and Services Administration, U.S. Public Health Service.
Funding Information:
In 1996, New York Medical College initiated a 10-month, part-time Primary Care Research Fellowship for general internists, general pediatricians, and family physicians. This interdisciplinary faculty development program, started with grant support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, included weekly daylong classes and a supervised research project chosen by each fellow. The morning session consisted of a research methods seminar, followed by a period set aside for individual assignments. The afternoon included a consultation period for fellows to obtain advice about their research project and a workshop designed for group exercises and the sharing of work in progress. Faculties from the Division of General Internal Medicine, School of Public Health, and Health Sciences Library, as well as staff from the Office of Research Administration, contributed to the teaching.
PY - 2008/4
Y1 - 2008/4
N2 - Background: Although generalist physician faculty typically lack the skills needed to conduct research, few medical schools offer on-site faculty development programs that teach research skills. Description: To address this dilemma, our medical school introduced a part-time Primary Care Research Fellowship offering full-day classes once a week over 10 months. Evaluation: We asked the 22 general internists, general pediatricians, and family physicians who participated in the program to rate their experience, and we measured their research productivity during the 3 years before and 3 years after completing the program, using a group of matched controls for comparison. Participants rated the program highly and increased their aggregate research productivity from 1 publication before completing the program to 6 publications afterward, although this increase did not reach statistical significance (p =.09). Controls exhibited substantially higher baseline productivity than fellows (10 publications vs. 1 publication, p =.03), but controls' productivity changed little between the first and second measurement periods (10 and 7 publications, respectively). Conclusion: Our mid-career research training program enabled primary care academic faculty to gain confidence in their ability to conduct a scientific study with minimal disruption to their teaching and clinical activities.
AB - Background: Although generalist physician faculty typically lack the skills needed to conduct research, few medical schools offer on-site faculty development programs that teach research skills. Description: To address this dilemma, our medical school introduced a part-time Primary Care Research Fellowship offering full-day classes once a week over 10 months. Evaluation: We asked the 22 general internists, general pediatricians, and family physicians who participated in the program to rate their experience, and we measured their research productivity during the 3 years before and 3 years after completing the program, using a group of matched controls for comparison. Participants rated the program highly and increased their aggregate research productivity from 1 publication before completing the program to 6 publications afterward, although this increase did not reach statistical significance (p =.09). Controls exhibited substantially higher baseline productivity than fellows (10 publications vs. 1 publication, p =.03), but controls' productivity changed little between the first and second measurement periods (10 and 7 publications, respectively). Conclusion: Our mid-career research training program enabled primary care academic faculty to gain confidence in their ability to conduct a scientific study with minimal disruption to their teaching and clinical activities.
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U2 - 10.1080/10401330801991899
DO - 10.1080/10401330801991899
M3 - Article
C2 - 18444207
AN - SCOPUS:41849135057
SN - 1040-1334
VL - 20
SP - 180
EP - 185
JO - Teaching and Learning in Medicine
JF - Teaching and Learning in Medicine
IS - 2
ER -