Research

The Road to Discovery .

With a broad program of research initiatives, the investigative tradition of our Department builds as clinicians work together to improve the lives of patients through innovation and discovery.

Research .

Residents are encouraged to participate in research and scholarship during the course of their training. Opportunities to engage in research and scholarship are available through the Department, the Institution, 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.

Areas of research focus include critical care, sepsis, emergency ultrasound, sports medicine, patient safety, simulation, EM operations, education, among others.

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.

Residents are expected to complete a quality improvement (QI) project and a scholarly project during the course of residency training. The QI project may also serve as a scholarly project by integrating these two closely aligned principles.

Quality Improvement Project

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.

The concept of QI is introduced during the course of the PGY 1 year. The interns organize into groups, and project ideas are discussed 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. 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 program didactics and Journal Club.

Integration of QI & Scholarship

The QI project may also serve as a scholarly project. Resident organize into groups, generate a hypothesis, design a study assessing quality of care, perform a literature review, complete an IRB application, collect data, analyze data, and present their findings as an abstract or presentation at a regional or national meeting. In some cases, manuscripts stemming from the QI/Scholarly project are submitted to major EM (or other specialty) journals.