Research Education for Future Physician-Scientists in Child Psychiatry

The long-term goal of this Research Education Grant (R25) renewal is to continue to support, refine, evaluate, and disseminate an innovative educational research program aimed at preparing the next generation of physician-scientists for independent, interdisciplinary research careers in child and adolescent mental health. Since 2004, this grant has made it possible for faculty of the Yale Child Study Center (YCSC), working together with academic leaders across the country, to conduct a model research education program that extends from postdoctoral research training to the submission of a K-series Career Development Award. Fostering increased emphasis on childhood mental health by clinically trained psychiatrists who have exposure to serious mental illness, addresses an urgent need at risk of deteriorating. Participants are also encouraged to pursue advanced degrees. This research education program seeks to fund portions of an initiative successfully developed during the initial funding cycle of this award (2006-2011) and refined during its second (2012-2016) and third (2017-2021): the Integrated Child and Adult Psychiatry Research Pathway (referred in the remainder of this application as the “Integrated Research Pathway” [IRP]). The IRP is a six-year program of postgraduate medical education. To date, the nation’s first IRP, entitled at Yale the Albert J. Solnit Program (AJSP) has enrolled two medical school graduates each year since 2004. For postdoctoral participants entering the AJSP, this award permits us to fund intensive periods of research training that are synergistic and complementary with other interdisciplinary institutional research opportunities on campus. There are currently 12 participants enrolled in the AJSP, with two new recruits recently matching into its newest cohort. In addition to producing an extensive record of peer-reviewed publications, sixteen of the first twenty-four (67%) physician-scientists who completed the AJSP to date (cohorts finishing their training between 2010 and 2021) graduated into academic faculty appointments. Eleven of twenty eligible graduates (55%) were successful in obtaining K- or R-series NIH funding within two years of completing their training.