Residency  >  Research

Research

The department supports a variety of research activities in areas including addiction, geriatric psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine, sleep disorders, pain medicine, alternative medicine, and psychodynamic psychiatry. Faculty members are eager to act as research mentors for interested students and residents. Residents at Jefferson, while welcome to participate in ongoing projects, have typically designed and implemented their own small-scale studies under the guidance of faculty.

While most resident research is conducted as part of the PGY-4 elective program, the department provides more formal research programs for those interested in conducting more extensive projects – the Research Scholars Program, and the Masters Program in Human investigation.

Research Scholars Program

Residents interested in conducting more extensive studies than can fit into PGY-4 are invited to apply for the Research Scholars Program. Residents in the program identify a research mentor in PGY-1, in which they design a study and submit it to the IRB. When the study is approved, the resident is admitted to the program and is given protected time in PGY2-4 to carry out the research. Residents in the Program are expected to prepare a Grand Rounds presentation of their work, and prepare a manuscript for submission to a referred journal.

Masters Program in Human Investigation

The Clinical Research Curriculum seeks to train clinicians and doctoral-level candidates interested in patient-oriented investigation. The Clinical Research Curriculum integrates core didactic courses with practical, mentored research experience outside of the classroom. Successful completion of the curriculum requires 40 credits, a formal research proposal, and thesis defense. Eligible applicants must have completed doctoral training, and may include house officers or subspecialty fellows.

Once accepted, trainees undertake formal course work in essential topics including biostatistics, epidemiology, clinical trial design, clinical pharmacology, outcomes research, bioethics and the responsible conduct of research, federal policy and regulations on human subjects, and scientific writing. The program integrates formal course work with the hands-on, operational experience central to the conduct of patient-oriented research. Other important components of the program include ethics seminars and conferences, journal club in clinical investigation, and in-house research seminar series, and seminars in clinical investigation with invited speakers from outside the institution.

Upon completion of the program, trainees have (1) an operational understanding of hypothesis formulation and testing in patient-based studies, (2) a theoretical foundation and working knowledge of research designs, (3) an operational understanding of the integration of laboratory-based analyses and surrogate endpoints in patient-oriented research, (4) a demonstrated record of achievement in clinical research, documented through publication, (5) the ability to critically appraise and evaluate the scientific literature and an understanding of the publication process, and (6) the ability to employ various computer-based statistical and database packages in research-related activities. Upon successfully completing the program, trainees will be qualified to perform independent clinical research, and will receive a Master of Science in Pharmacology in Human Investigation.