APGO

Sara B. Sakamoto, MD
Magee-Womens Hospital of UPMC, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Study Objective: Scholarly activity and research are important aspects of residency training, as it is a graduation requirement for many residency programs and expected of residents seeking fellowship positions. Engaging residents in clinical research helps to advance the understanding of basic research principles and the development of practice-based learning and improvement skills - both mandates outlined by the ACGME. Many programs struggle to provide adequate research resources for their full complement of residents. We sought to create a team-based experiential research curriculum that emphasized generalizable research principles through the creation and analysis of a large cesarean section database. Additional curricular objectives included timely completion of individual resident projects, enhancing interest and opportunity for quality improvement initiatives as well as fostering collaboration and mentorship.

Methods: We designed an elective twelve-month clinical research curriculum for residents utilizing a retrospective observational design focused on cesarean section. The initial phase of the project involved recruiting residents via a general e-mail announcement. Eight (of 38) residents joined the research team after attending an informational meeting outlining the vision and expectations for the project (including 5 out of 10 PGY1s). Four undergraduate students interested in medicine were also recruited. The second phase of the project consisted of the creation of our research database. All members of the team were trained in the use of the electronic medical record to abstract data on 253 pre-defined variables of interest. Two-thousand cesarean section cases were abstracted and validated using a double entry process. The final phase of the project involved identifying and completing individual research projects. Residents were placed in smaller working groups based on area of research interest to foster collaborative learning, group trouble-shooting and accountability. Throughout the project, didactic sessions targeted concepts related to research design and analysis. Topics included an overview of types of research, formulating appropriate research questions, merits and weaknesses of retrospective observational research as well as biostatistics, STATA and Access basics.

Results: The team-based, experiential research curriculum allowed for an efficient and productive research experience for a large number of residents while utilizing minimal departmental resources. Individual team member effort was effectively leveraged to create a large research database. Additionally, residents expressed enhanced appreciation for the importance of thorough medical documentation and awareness of practice variation. By the completion of the 12-month curriculum, several residents submitted abstracts to peer-reviewed meetings and were working toward manuscript completion.

Conclusions: Using an experiential team-based research curriculum is an efficient and effective way to engage residents in scholarly activity. Further evaluation of this curriculum is warranted to assess whether its use is sustainable and leads to enhanced resident research productivity.

Key Words: Resident research, research cohort, Research curriculum