Research and Scholarly Activity

Residents present clinical conferences during each of the three years of training.  Each resident is responsible for reviewing a paper for journal club, and each third year resident gives one or two noon lectures on topics of his or her choice.

Every resident is required to complete a research project during the three years of residency.  Residents can chose to do their projects at Columbia University, and participate in either bench or clinical research.  Residents can chose to stay at St Vincent's, where there are a variety of research opportunities.  St. Vincent's attendings participate in clinical research, including multi-site drug trials.  Residents can also design their own studies on patient education, drug use, guideline development and dissemination, or any other topic that interests them.  The core faculty have training and experience in bench and health services research, and are eager to work with residents on project selection, design, and data management.

During the first year, interns decide on their project and select a research mentor.  The Medical Education Staff help with this process, and ensure that each house-officer has a realistic project, and a dedicated mentor.  During the next two years, residents work on their projects.  Elective time for research is available in both the second and third years of training.  In addition, each resident is assigned to a Quality Review team as a quality research analyst, and is actively involved in the initiation of quality programs within the hospital community.

Residents are expected to produce a project that can be presented at the relevant regional and/or national society meeting.

In addition to the research project, residents are encouraged to write up interesting clinical cases for the regional American College of Physicians and Society for General Internal Medicine meetings.