Research Narrative
Research and Scholarly Activity Narrative
Research is an essential component of residency training because it ensures that the residents are engaged in the process of translating their medical knowledge into informed evidence-based practices that improve patient care. All residents are required to participate in research and various scholarly activities. As part of a competency-based curriculum specifically designed for the internal medicine program, residents in their first year of training receive a multi-disciplinary medicine (MDM) course. The MDM course consists of series of lectures and workshops on biostatistics, clinical epidemiology (study design, clinical reasoning, and understanding clinical data), IRB process, social determinants of health, evidence-based medicine (EBM) search strategies and literature review.
In our effort to promote the evidence-based medical practice and based on the knowledge integrated from the MDM course, residents are assigned EBM clinical cases for which they are expected to appraise the literature and the current guidelines in search of solutions that support their clinical decision with the highest level of evidence. Eventually, each resident prepares an abstract that answers the patient-based clinical question from the EBM case, along with a PowerPoint presentation that depicts the critical thinking process that led to the clinical decision with the highest evidence possible. EBM abstracts are submitted to different research venues, but most importantly to the three annual American College of Physicians (ACP) competitions: Residents’ Day, Fall Scientific Meeting and National meeting.
During the three years of training, residents are required to meet the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) scholarly activities requirements through developing at least one case report, and a research or quality improvement (QI) project. The abstracts will then be submitted and presented at local, regional and national medical meetings. Besides our annual Research Day, many of our residents successfully present their scholarly work at different venues such as: CHEST, SEMCME (Southeast Michigan Center for Medical Education), ACC Congress (American College of Cardiology), ACG (American College of Gastroenterology), Digestive Disease Week, The World Congress of Gastroenterology, AAN (American Academy of Neurology), Society of General Internal Medicine, and DMC QuESST (Quality Education and Safe Systems Training).
During their training, residents are required to develop at least one case report or research project for presentations at regional and national meetings of the American College of Physicians (ACP). In addition, in collaboration with faculty and other basic science investigators at Wayne State University, residents at Sinai-Grace Hospital have conducted several research projects, some of which have been published or submitted for publication in peer-reviewed journals. Residents from Sinai-Grace Hospital, Internal Medicine program have won several awards at regional and national research competitions in the 2005-2008 periods and have been selected for oral/poster presentations at the highly competitive national meeting of the ACP for the last 15 consecutive years.
Residents have the option of doing a 2-month research elective in clinical or basic science research during the three years of training. The requirements for the research elective are detailed in the research curriculum. In order to qualify for a research elective, the residents are required to develop a hypothesis-driven research proposal and submit it for review by the research committee. The resident also needs to identify a faculty who will preceptor, supervise and evaluate the resident's participation in the research project. After completion of the research, the resident is required to present his/her findings at noon conference. In addition, residents are required to submit abstracts for presentation at professional meetings and when suited to develop manuscripts for publication.
The Sinai-Grace Program actively participates with the ACP Michigan chapter to foster scholarly activity among internal medicine residents statewide. The Sinai-Grace Internal Medicine Program hosted the Michigan Associates Day in May 2005 and in 2009, and several Sinai-Grace faculties are members of the Governors advisory council and help with coordinating educational and research programs for the ACP.
The Internal Medicine Program also serves as the principal organizing department for the Sinai-Grace research day held in May or June. It is intended for residents and medical trainees at Sinai-Grace hospital to showcase and present their research.
A summary of regional, national and international meeting at which residents from Sinai-Grace program have presented their work is listed below:
ACP Michigan Chapter Associates Meeting
ACP Michigan Chapter Scientific Session
ACP Annual sessions (National meeting)
Sinai Grace Hospital Research Day
American College of Cardiology Michigan Chapter
ASCO Breast Cancer Symposium
World Conference on Lung Cancer CHEST
DMC-QuESST
SEMCME Research Forum
SEMCME Quality and Patient Safety Forum
Other subspecialty national meetings
