RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES

Our residency program has access to world-class, state-of-the-art research facilities and motivated clinical faculty which fosters an environment of academic inquiry. Whether the focus is basic science, translational, or clinical research, residents are provided with multiple opportunities to pursue their own research projects throughout their time in our program.

Patient Safety Quality Improvement Projects

Every resident participates in Quality Improvement research, facilitated by the QI Chief Resident specifically assigned to mentor them. These projects are career-based. For example, a PGY1 headed for an Endocrine fellowship will participate in a multi-disciplinary working group focused on improving inpatient blood sugar control. This enables our trainees to get to know faculty in the specialty of their choice early on and conduct scholarly activities to enhance their fellowship potential.

Protected Research Time

Residents receive protected research time during their PGY-2 and PGY-3 years. Resident research is driven entirely by personal interest. The Associate Program Director of Clinical Research and Mentorship and the Chief Resident of Research and Education can link residents to potential research mentors based on their subspecialty interest.

We encourage residents to access the Project And Investigative Research (PAIR) database of current research projects from each DOM division. Examples of projects include: the creation of a new order set in our EMR to ensure appropriate lung cancer screening is performed in clinics; investigating patient outcomes associated with long pauses during CPR, and a patient-centered needs assessment in the GI lab to determine how to facilitate colonoscopies. Basic science projects are also readily available in our extensive College of Medicine Research Building.

Department Support to Present Research

We maintain a strong presence at the annual ACP Northern Illinois chapter meeting, where every trainee is encouraged to submit a poster representing their scholarly work. This experience promotes resident engagement with faculty and fellows and familiarizes residents with conducting a literature review. We also have an annual Scholarly Activities Day, where residents can present their work on campus.

Our program is heavily committed to giving residents the opportunity to present their data or case presentations at professional society meetings of their choosing. Residents have attended the ACP national meeting, ACG, DDW, ASCO, ASH ACC, ATS, and many more. The program provides funding for residents to present their research conducted at UIC at national meetings.

 

INSTRUCTIONS: In order to add a sidebar anchor:

  1. Duplicate the existing item, listed as a 1/6 text field. (Or create a 1/6 column and add a text field, modify the class so it’s exactly “additionalAnchor”).
  2. Modify the text field inside the 1/6 column. Inside there, modify the HYPERLINK so that it would go to a corresponding section with a “#” in front of it. (Example, we have a “chief” section on the page, then it would make sense to have the hyperlink go to “#chief”)
  3. Then change the hyperlink TEXT to a appropriate label.
  4. IMPORTANT: If not done already, go into that CONTAINER that corresponds to your anchor (i.e. Meet The Chiefs), and add an ID matching the anchor’s HYPERLINK WITHOUT the “#”, i.e. “chief”.
  5. (If using side bar widget box, then there’s a saved copy of a widget box COLUMN, grab it in the column library, it should 1/6 of a length of a column.)

NOTE: Order added to the sidebar is from last to first.