Making Research Accessible in GME

In 2021 I co-founded the Society for Innovation and Research (SIR) while in my clinical pathology residency. Our goal was to promote and support resident participation in research and innovation. Using PubMed indexed publications as a metric of success, we found that SIR more than doubled the average number of resident publications, while also increasing the average number of residents publishing and the average number of co-authored publications (a surrogate for collaboration within the residency program). In short, SIR was a breakout success.

Efforts to promote resident research productivity often emphasize grant funding in their curricula; however, with SIR we avoided the subject entirely for two reasons. First, obtaining grant-funding is largely inaccessible while in clinical training, and second the rigors of sustaining grant-funded research are unattractive to many residents, who as a cohort are starting to emphasize lifestyle in their career choices. Instead of emphasizing applying for grants and spending precious free hours at the bench, we introduced a new paradigm of research and participation in science in graduate medical education, with “one foot only in the ivory tower”. In doing so, we considered the following three major points.

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First, doctors need to be educated consumers of scientific literature. SIR featured monthly workshops during which residents presented works in progress to their co-residents, who then participated in giving critical feedback. Thus, residents in the audience built critical thinking skills about collecting, analyzing, and displaying data in an experiential fashion. It was our belief that this experiential learning would solidify the importance of critical thinking better than simply reading and discussing literature.

Second, most residents will not have the time to participate in discovery research. Yet, this does not mean they cannot participate in research at all. In SIR we emphasized retrospective chart reviews and case reports, both being more attainable for busy residents. We routinely utilized TriNetX, a deidentified clinical database from institutions across the world, and in doing so introduced skills in bioinformatics and data science, which are becoming more critical with every passing year. These kinds of projects can still produce valuable results, and largely do not require grant funding. By shifting focus away from the long tradition of grant-funded bench work, we gave residents the tools to participate in research for years to come, whether they opt to pursue grant funding or not.

Third, communicating science is of the upmost importance with the uptick of health misinformation spreading across social media, and should be a major goal of any research oriented program in graduate medical education. SIR workshops allowed residents to not only practice presenting projects, but also to hear their co-residents present and observe what worked well.

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In summary, we shouldn’t teach research skills to residents with the framework that everyone needs to be a grant-funded researcher to be successful, or that this is the pinnacle of participation in the scientific endeavor. Current residents are becoming doctors in an era in which scientific literacy is in decline, and much of the joy of science has been lost to hyper-competitive grant funding and relentless productivity metrics. We should be introducing new paradigms of accessible research to residents, as we did in SIR, as it is more critical than ever that they embrace the scientific endeavor to improve the conditions of humanity.