Residents are encouraged to participate in research during the course of their training. Opportunities to engage in research are available through the department, Georgetown University School of Medicine, and the MedStar Research Institute. The Office of Graduate Medical Education offers funding to support the presentation of research at conferences or meetings.

Residents also have the unique opportunity to participate in research conducted by MedStar Health’s Institute for Medical Informatics, a center for research and development in emergency medicine informatics. The institute is the recipient of a $6.5 million research grant from the National Library of Medicine (Project Sentinel) to develop advanced biosurveillance data techniques and data visualization that unites clinical and non-clinical data from the District of Columbia and its environs.

In addition, residents are expected to complete a quality improvement (QI) project and a scholarly project during the course of their residency.

Quality Improvement Project

The concept of quality improvement is introduced during the course of the PGY 1 year. The interns are placed into groups, and project ideas are discussed towards the end of the intern year with a QI mentor who oversees this project. During the second year, each group must complete a QI project which involves evaluating and improving one systems-based aspect of patient care within the emergency department. This project culminates with a final presentation at the end of the second year. It is anticipated that completion of this project supplemented with didactics from conference will provide each resident with an appreciation of the importance and the tools to perform systems-based improvement.

Scholarly Project

A Scholarly Project is required for graduation from the program. As with the quality improvement project, this requirement is overseen by The Scholarly Project Committee. The fundamental purpose of this project is to provide experience in critical thinking, evidence-based learning, literature review, research methodologies and in some instances experience with statistics. By providing practical experience in these areas, it is designed to supplement ideas discussed in Journal Club.