Summer Research Institute: Enhancing research career development in geriatric psychiatry.
Halpain MC, Jeste DV, Katz IR, et al. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 1997;5:238-246.
Halpain et al review the results of the Summer Research Institute (SRI) in Geriatric Psychiatry, an annual week-long research training program followed by ongoing mentorship for about 25 selected fellows and junior faculty. About 90% of the 123 attendees have presented and written publishable papers within a year of attendance, and over 50% have received grant funding within 18 months of the SRI. The 3-year cumulative proportion remaining in full-time academics is 78%. Based on these results, the authors propose the SRI as a useful model for training junior investigators.
Postdoctoral clinical-research training in psychiatry: A model for teaching grant writing and other research survival skills and for increasing clarity of mentoring expectations.
Reynolds CF III, Martin C, Brent D, et al. Acad Psychiatry. 1998; 22:190-196.
Reynolds et al describe a program at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh, developed for postdoctoral clinical research fellows in psychiatry, that focuses primarily on grant-writing skills. The process of implementing this course has also led to greater clarity in what is expected of research mentors in the department. As a result, 16 of 30 course participants received their first extramural support by the end of their 2-year fellowship tenure or during the succeeding year.
Consensus statement on the upcoming crisis in geriatric mental health.
Jeste DV, Alexopoulos GS, Bartels SJ, et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 1999;56:848-853.
In this often-cited paper, Jeste et al detail the anticipated explosive growth in Americans over age 65 with psychiatric disorders and propose a plan for increasing both the numbers of researchers and the types of studies needed to manage this crisis.
Training in geriatric mental health: Needs and suggested strategies.
Halpain MC, Harris MJ, McClure FS, Jeste DV. Psychiatric Services. 1999;50:1205-1208.
This paper examines current numbers of U.S. mental health care professionals in psychiatry, psychology, social work, and nursing who are trained to treat late-life mental disorders and propose strategies to increase the number of these specialists, including expanding incentives; encouraging professional organizations to offer certification in aging; and increasing core curricula in late-life mental disorders, or at least in aging, in all health professions.
Recruiting and retaining future generations of physician-scientists in mental health.
Kupfer DJ, Hyman SE, Schatzberg AF, et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2002;59:657-660.
Kupfer et al discuss 6 key challenges facing the recruitment and retention of physician scientists as career mental health researchers. These challenges include (1) early identification and recruitment at the undergraduate and medical student level; (2) recruitment of a more diverse group of trainees; (3) safety nets for reducing attrition; (4) strategies to promote successful competition for K awards; (5) definition of appropriate roles and career development opportunities in multisite clinical trials; and (6) strategies for the mentoring "cost."
Career development and training in geriatric mental health: report of an NIMH workshop.
Olin JT, Reynolds CF III, Light E, Cuthbert BN. Am J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2003;11:275-279.
In 2002, a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)-sponsored meeting was convened to come up with means of increasing the pool of late-life mental-illness researchers. This paper details some of the opportunities and challenges discussed at that meeting, including encouraging retention of junior scientists; creating research postdoctoral programs by investigators and institutions that lack late-life emphasis; earlier commitment to late-life research with predoctoral training mechanisms; recruitment of ethnic and racial minority scholars into late-life research; and recruitment of newly established researchers through postdoctoral training mechanisms.
Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance consensus statement on the unmet needs in diagnosis and treatment of mood disorders in late life.
Charney DS, Reynolds CF III, Lewis L, et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2003;60:664-72.
The Consensus Development Panel of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance consisted of experts in late-life mood disorders, geriatrics, primary care, mental health and aging policy research, and advocacy, who met to review progress made in late-life mood disorders and to identify areas of need in health care delivery and research still unmet. Based on the findings discussed, the panel concluded that mood disorders in the elderly continue to be a significant health care issue with associated high rates of morbidity and mortality, despite the availability of safe and effective treatments and made recommendations for further action.
Intensive short-term research training for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students: early experience with a new national-level approach in geriatric mental health.
Halpain MC, Jeste DV, Trinidad GI, Wetherell JL, Lebowitz BD. Acad Psychiatry. 2005;29:58-65.
The authors describe their first-year experience with the Summer Training in Aging Research Topics in Mental Health (START-MH), a federally funded national-level training program that enrolled undergraduate, graduate, and medical students. Trainees spent 10 weeks during the summer working on research projects under established research mentors. The experience was uniformly positive for both trainees and mentors and led in several instances to trainees submitting work for presentation or publication. The START-MH program can be a potentially useful model for attracting talented early-career trainees into mental health research.
Mentoring: an action strategy for increasing minority faculty.
Blackwell, James E. Acad Psychiatry. Academe. Sep-Oct 1989;75:8-14.
Mentoring is discussed as a process that can increase the retention, graduation rates, and job success of minority students, thereby increasing diversity in academe.
Mentors and role models for women in academic medicine.
Levinson W, Kaufman K, Clark B, Tolle SW. West J Med. 1991 April;154(4):423426.
A national survey of 558 full-time faculty women, aged 50 years and younger, in departments of medicine in the United States, found that women with mentors report more publications and more time spent on research activity than those without mentors.
On mentoring.
Barondess JA. J R Soc Med. 1997;90:347-349.
This overview of mentoring in medicine emphasizes its benefits for mentor, mentee, and the field: "Mentoring has the capacity to make the pursuit of excellence an enduring preoccupation of future faculty and of the profession generally."
A mentoring program for underrepresented-minority students at the University of Rochester School of Medicine.
Abernethy AD.Acad Med. 1999; Apr;74(4):356-9.
The results of a mentoring program designed to address the needs of underrepresented minority students (URM) students and potential mentors who were non-URM faculty are reported. The program trained mentors, created a bicultural support group for URM students, and provided structured mentoring. At the end of the program's first year, both students and mentors were generally positive in their feedback.
Skills for mentors and proteges applicable to psychiatry.
Rodenhauser P, Rudisill JR, Dvorak R. Acad Psychiatry. 2000; 24:14-27.
This article addresses mentoring as it specifically relates to psychiatry, including skills for mentors and mentees; dynamics of the mentoring relationship; benefits and barriers; and issues related to gender, race, and culture.
"Having the right chemistry": a qualitative study of mentoring in academic medicine.
Jackson VA, Palepu A, Szalacha L, Caswell C, Carr PL, Inui T. Acad Med. 2003 Mar;78(3):328-34.
Sixteen faculty members were interviewed about their experience with mentoring. Approximately 98% identified lack of mentoring as the first or second most important factor hindering their career progress in academic medicine. Among other findings, the authors state that compatibility is an essential component in the mentoring relationship.
A year of mentoring in academic medicine: case report and qualitative analysis of fifteen hours of meetings between a junior and senior faculty member.
Rabatin JS, Lipkin M Jr, Rubin AS, Schachter A, Nathan M, Kalet A. J Gen Intern Med. 2004 May;19(5 Pt 2):569-73.
A case study of a successful mentoring relationship, this paper was the first published in-depth qualitative analysis of the mentoring process.
Mentoring in academic medicine: a systematic review.
Sambunjak D, Straus SE, Marusic A. JAMA. 2006 Sep 6;296(9):1103-15.
This review of the prevalence of mentorship and its relationship to career development. found that fewer than 50% of medical students and in some fields fewer than 20% of faculty members had a mentor. Women perceived that they had more difficulty finding mentors than their colleagues who are men. Mentorship was reported to have an important influence on personal development, career guidance, career choice, and research productivity, including publication and grant success.
