Residency Research Goals, Expectations, and Support
Our Department supports an active research program that supplements the resident educational experience. We hope to foster lifelong self-directed learning and to develop an ongoing practice of independent self-assessment. While not all members of the teaching staff are investigators, everyone supports the scholarly activity. This environment of inquiry is further nurtured by a structured research curriculum. This core curriculum includes a didactic research series that provides support and education in research design and statistical analysis and offers continuous guidance for ongoing resident projects.
It is a requirement for graduation, that each resident develops and completes a research project of publishable quality. The department strongly supports the presentation of these projects at national scientific meetings and the publication of results in peer-reviewed journals. In addition, all chief residents will present their work at the regional KPNC Resident Research Symposium. Additionally, all third-year residents are required to make a Grand Rounds presentation on a CME topic related to their area of interest.
It is expected that through the process of completing their project, residents will learn firsthand about the realities of conducting clinical research and are better able to interpret the medical literature. Our residents have consistently produced excellent research, and present annually at regional and national conferences and publish in peer-reviewed journals. Any resident whose paper is accepted for presentation will have his/her expenses for that conference reimbursed.
Residents are encouraged to pick their research topics in their first year. Residents will work with faculty who have interest and expertise in the area chosen to complete the project. Residents meet with their mentor as frequently as necessary to make appropriate progress on their research. Residents are required to make a formal presentation at monthly one-on-one Resident Research Meetings with an associate program director every 6 months. Additionally, during each of the eleven months of the ambulatory rotations scheduled throughout the program, there is one-half day twice a month reserved for working on the research project.
Aida Shirazi R.Ph., M.S., Ph.D. Kaiser San Francisco Medical Center Research Project Manager
Dr. Shirazi joined our department in 2017 to specifically support our residency research curriculum and individual residents with their research projects. Dr. Shirazi received her Ph.D. in Public Health from Oregon State University, she also has an M.S. in nutritional science and is a registered pharmacist. Over the past decade, she has been a Program Director and Co-Principle Investigator at the University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health, and the California Breast Cancer Research Program. She has experience with quantitative and qualitative research methodologies and has extensive experience working with diverse linguistic and cultural communities to develop effective interventions to reduce health disparities. Dr. Aida Shirazi delivers a series of didactic lectures on clinical research methodology.
Division of Research Support and Resources
Statistical support and consultation is available as a service to the residents through the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research (DOR) in Oakland. Our nationally recognized DOR consists of our 400 investigators (MD’s and PhD’s) and support staff (biostatisticians and editors). MaryAnn Armstrong, and her support staff, at the DOR, with support from our Institutional Graduate Medical Education Department, is prepared to support residents design and analyze their study. They are fully prepared to support the resident and their mentor in all phases of a study, including study design, data abstraction, statistical analysis and even manuscript preparation.
The DOR has developed a series of online research training modules that residents are expected to complete in their first 2 years of training. These structured lessons are 30-45 minutes each. These web-based, self-taught courses help residents understand the basics of planning for and conducting effective clinical research. This program provides the learner with a strong foundation in research principles and the application of those principles in designing and conducting research. It also teaches basic statistical knowledge needed to understand the design and conduct of a research protocol and different methods to analyze the results.
Each PGY-I should complete the courses called the Introduction to Clinical Research and Research Statistics. These courses cover:
- Choosing a Research Question
- Observational Study Designs
- Experimental Study Designs/Clinical Trials
- Selecting Study Subjects
- Choosing and Measuring Variables
- Confounding and Bias
- Kaiser Permanente Data Sources for Research
- Descriptive Statistics
- Hypothesis Testing and P-values
- Sample Size and Power
Each PGY-2 should complete Multivariable Statistics course, which covers:
- Linear Regression
- Logistic Regression
- Multivariable analysis
- Cox and poisson regression
