MSU PCRC Initiatives – Department of Family Medicine

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Research Fellowship Training Program

The MSU Primary Care Research Collaborative is in the process of developing a Research Fellowship Training Program that will be launched in August 2025. The Fellowship will be offered once a year starting in Fall semester 2025 and will last 9 months from August-May. An electronic application will be developed to apply for the Program.

The primary goal of the Fellowship Program is to serve as a faculty development initiative to enhance research skills and expertise among faculty in residency programs. Many faculty in family medicine residency programs indicate they have limited research skills training and experience, which hinders their ability to effectively mentor residents in research scholarship. This represents a gap in family medicine graduate medical education that the training program will address.

While residents with a keen interest in research are welcome to participate in the Research Training Fellowship Program, the target audience of the fellowship is residency program faculty interested in enhancing their research skills training. Using a train-the-trainer model, graduates of the Fellowship Program will be able to serve as more effective research mentors for residents and faculty peers, increasing resident and faculty research interest and productivity in turn.

The Fellowship Program will entail a year-long seminar of courses and workshops in a peer-to-peer, small group learning environment focused on clinical research skills training for family physicians including fundamentals of epidemiology and biostatistics, study design, methodology, interpretation, manuscript development, and quality improvement. Educational offerings will emphasize practice-based research, consistent with the career goals of most family medicine faculty. Courses will primarily be held virtually to accommodate the scheduling and clinical demands of faculty; however, hybrid formats may be offered based on the needs and interests of program enrollees.

A Fellowship Planning Committee with interdisciplinary experts across epidemiology, biostatistics, family medicine, primary care, and higher, adult, and lifelong education, will be established by August 2024 to plan curriculum and content. Faculty and resident representatives from Family Medicine residency programs are welcome to join. If you are interested in joining the planning committee, please contact MSU-PCRC@msu.edu.

Research Collaborative

The Research Collaborative is a practice-based research network (PBRN) hosted by the MSU Department of Family Medicine which aims to improve research capacity and scholarship in primary care practices, with an emphasis on Family Medicine Residency Programs.

The Research Collaborative provides a research infrastructure to facilitate program-initiated practice-based research studies across Michigan that improve evidence-based medicine and address gaps in clinical care within family medicine and primary care contexts. The Research Collaborative will provide resources and support to address known barriers to research in family medicine residency programs, including the assistance of a research assistant, compensation to practices for research participation, research mentorship, assistance with IRB processes, a research toolkit, and statistical and writing support.

The governance structure of the Research Collaborative includes the Senior Leadership team (Director of the Collaborative and Chair of the Department of Family Medicine), the Advisory Board (comprising family medicine physicians, public health professionals, residents, research experts, and patients), and the Research Committee (comprising research methodology experts). Patients will be invited to join the Advisory Board to ensure representation of patient perspectives. The role of the Advisory Board and the Research Committee is to evaluate submitted research proposals to ensure their relevance to the practice of family medicine, alignment with the goals and mission of the Collaborative, and implementation feasibility.

Research proposals may be submitted by any faculty or resident in primary care, academic researchers from any institution, and/or researchers from community-based organizations who wish to collaborate with primary care practices. Although all projects relevant to primary care will be considered, the Collaborative will encourage projects that entail multi-program collaborations, interdisciplinary frameworks, and an emphasis on addressing health disparities and social determinants of health, consistent with the mission of CHM.

As applicable, research proposals may request funding support from the Collaborative. In the first year of the project funding period (2024-2025), two large-scale research projects are anticipated to be funded; three projects in the second year (2025-2026); and four projects in the third year (2026-2027).

Proposals will be accepted three times a year (August, December, and April) through an online submission portal starting July 15, 2024.