To the Editor: One of the highlights of our training was having the opportunity to design, implement, and publish (1) our own data-driven research project. Although this experience was invaluable to our learning and our careers, it also came with its own set of challenges. Chief among these were a lack of context, experience, and exposure to the proper mentors during the most crucial stages of conceptualizing our project. By the time we had a foundation of knowledge and mentorship that was a good fit for our study, we were already in the data-collection phase and therefore unable to incorporate the suggestions of our mentors.

As such, it might be worth considering ways in which research guidance and a general understanding of how an idea becomes a project and ultimately a paper could be provided to residents earlier in training. Doing so would serve to enrich the training process, while potentially stimulating a greater interest in an academic career.

One idea would be to infuse aspects of a research-track curriculum into that of general psychiatry residents. A 4-year course could be created in which all residents were expected to have a finished, data-driven manuscript by the time of graduation. The first year would cover research design/methodology; the second year would cover review-board submission and project implementation; the third year would cover data-collection and statistical analysis; and the fourth and final year would cover manuscript writing and submission. All trainees would spend 1 hour per month with an individual research mentor and 1 hour per month receiving group instruction. During the group sessions, statisticians, review-board representatives, and principal investigators would be brought directly to the residents to eliminate issues of access and provide critical troubleshooting. The groups would be run more as workshops, with residents and experts discussing ideas together, while the individual mentors would provide more fine-tuned guidance to project specifics. Improvement could be measured by a “pre- and post-“ evidence-based medicine quiz, by measuring the number of data-driven projects published per class, and/or by quantifying the percentage of trainees in each class who go on to pursue academic careers.

As with any educational intervention, there are several potential limitations to this proposed curriculum. A training program may lack the resources to provide such a curriculum; residents would have to be willing to invest time and energy into it; and adjustments would have to be made for certain residents and faculty members.

There are likely many other such scenarios in which residents would be able to gain more exposure to research at such a crucial and formative part of their professional development. Ultimately, more data are needed to compare and contrast various methods of measuring success in this area. We look forward to hearing about some of these ideas and continuing this discussion.

Thank you for your time,