CLINICAL RESEARCH SCHOLARS PROGRAM IN PSYCHIATRY

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The University of Pennsylvania Department of Psychiatry proposes to create a new Clinical Research Scholars Program (CRSP) in Psychiatry, a specialized track nested in the residency program and coupled with a fifth year of fellowship training. Led by the Department's Chair, the Director of Education and the Vice-Chair for Research Development, the CRSP will attract and train promising young clinical investigators in psychiatry and mental health. This new venture will bring together senior research faculty in an innovative educational effort that will provide intensive mentoring to trainees, specialized courses in mental health research issues and methods, and progressively autonomous participation in clinical research. A proven center of excellence in research, the Department of Psychiatry has reorganized its extensive research, clinical and training programs to support an aggressive expansion of the clinical research faculty. The CRSP will offer a curriculum which is designed to introduce trainees to investigations at the cutting edge of basic and clinical science, to familiarize them with basic methods in psychiatry and mental health research, to provide directed research experiences, to provide advanced courses in research, and to support independent clinical research during the final year of training. Modifications of the residency will permit CRSP trainees progressively increasing amounts of time in research-related experience and study while fulfilling their requirements for board certification in psychiatry. Trainees will be recruited from medical school applicant pools and will be selected into the program at the end of their PGY-I year. In each succeeding year, clinical research knowledge and skills will be fostered through mentoring, direct participation in research, course work, and seminars in bioethics and related professional development issues. Upon completion, trainees will have conducted independent patient oriented research, and will compete for positions in academic psychiatry. CRSP resources will be committed primarily toward supporting the salaries of trainees, their travel to research meetings, and their research activities. The strength of the institutional commitment to this program is made manifest in the allocation of departmental funds to support 50 percent of the fifth year of training, and to facilitate the recruitment of successful graduates to the Department faculty. Strengths of the proposed program include: (1) experienced departmental leadership with complementary expertise in clinical research, basic research and clinical education; (2) university-wide emphasis on the development of expertise in Clinical Research; (3) the second-largest research program in psychiatry in the nation; (4) an integrated neuroscience research program housed in the Center for Neurobiology and Behavior; (5) strong collaborative links with other key resources in the medical center including the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, the Center for Bioethics, the Center for Excellence in Minority Health, and a federally-funded General Clinical Research Center, and (6) extensive patient resources from four major teaching hospitals within an integrated behavioral health system.