Postdoctoral Training in Geriatric Psychiatry Research

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This application presents an application for three 3-year fellowship slots to support postdoctoral training in geriatric psychiatry, psychology, and related areas of mental health research, via a new Institutional National Research Service Award (T32). We are creating this geriatrics-specific training program after the intentional broadening of our Department's longstanding NIMH-funded T32 in the 1990s, when we felt that there were too few mentors in the geriatric mentoring group. In recent years, however, our geriatrics research programs and their collaborative resources have continued to grow substantially, thus providing a unique foundation for the development of a translational research focus. Our explicit goal is to train the next generations of physicians and other doctoral trained scientists as future investigators conducting translational (i.e., "bench to bedside" and "clinical research setting to real world practice") interventions and prevention research, primarily related to depression and dementia in later life. Hallmarks of our approach include access to a wide range of subject populations (consistent with the "real world" component of translational research), and a Departmental and University-wide culture placing high values on mentored career development and on multidisciplinary clinical, educational, and research collaborations. Core areas of skill development include: geriatric psychopathology, research design and methods (particularly as they relate to prevention and intervention research), biostatistics, grant writing and writing for publication, and the ethics of research. There are seven (7) mid-career and senior-level faculty members serving as primary Mentors for the proposed fellowship slots, and additional Preceptors and Resource Faculty. Throughout the past 15 years, our Department has recruited highly qualified candidates to our postdoctoral training programs, and our trainees have gone on to successful academic careers as demonstrated through their publications, their successfully funded grant applications, and their promotions. The proposed training is based on the establishment of a committed mentor-trainee relationship, the formulation of individually tailored programs that involve fellows in current research and support the development of their own protocols, and formal didactics-based learning including both required and "selective" courses, seminars, and research meetings. Such training addresses critical "pipeline" shortages in geriatric mental health research.