Integrated Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Training (IMPORT) in Psychiatry

Mental illness affects 15% of the population and creates enormous morbidity and cost. Physician-scientists have a critical role to play in advancing our understanding of its underlying pathophysiology and developing, refining, and deploying novel strategies for diagnosis, treatment, prevention, and cure. Yet the number of physician-scientists entering psychiatry remains distressingly limited – precisely when the science is advancing at an accelerating rate and new, science-grounded therapeutics are beginning to appear. This R25-funded training program, the Integrated Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Training (IMPORT) Program, has been training physician-scientist in the Yale psychiatry residency for 15 years. Its innovative design creates continuous, accelerated protected time for research, beginning in the first year of residency training and continuing through graduation. IMPORT trainees have gone on to faculty positions at top universities, including leadership positions at major institutions. In this renewal application we build on this success, continuing the core training structure that has worked so well. We augment the training program in several important ways. First, we enhance our efforts at recruitment and retention of the most promising physician-scientists. We have had considerable success in both recruitment and retention; we here apply the lessons learned from this experience. Second, we provide new training in scientific communication, so that our trainees will be positioned not only to create the innovations that will drive the field forward, but also to disseminate them to clinical providers and to the broader public. Third, we newly focus on participant-engaged research, which is increasingly recognized as critical both for the identification of the most impactful research questions and for the effective deployment of new treatments in the real world. Finally, we reinforce our supports for grant-writing and career development, which are critical for the success of our trainees. Through these enhancements, we take the successful IMPORT program and improve it for the next generation. We are inspired by the success of this program over the past 15 years and energized to continue our support of psychiatric physician-scientists as we move into the next phase of this important training grant.