Resident Research

Christy Ullrich and Anne Wu when they were residents, working on their study, published in JAMA, showing that a low reticulocyte hemoglobin is an early indicator of iron deficiency.

Although there is no formal research requirement, or even an expectation that residents will do research, many residents do research, particularly clinical research during their training. Some also do ‘omics research or other research where assays are sent off and the resulting data is analyzed.

Children’s Hospital has extensive clinical research resources with staff members who have expertise across a wide range of methodologies, including observational studies, biomarker-driven designs, and phase I-III clinical trials. They can help with experimental designs, statistical analysis, and regulatory approval of a project.

Boston Medical Center also has a clinical research resources unit plus an inpatient Clinical Research Unit where patients can be housed for studies.

In addition, Children’s is part of Harvard Catalyst, a consortium of Harvard hospitals and resources dedicated to clinical research. The Harvard Catalyst provides incredible resources for interconnecting investigators with common interests across the Harvard community and has introduced very powerful tools that facilitate clinical research. Catalyst also provides education and training in clinical research, pilot funding, core facilities and many other services.

Residents present at national conferences every year

Faculty members at both Children’s and BMC are eager to help residents with research, and many serve as mentors for research projects. The Academic Development Block provides a time to do small projects or conclude larger ones and the Academy of Basic and Translational Investigation,  Academy of Clinical Investigation, and Academy of Clinical Innovation emphasize research.

Both the Department of Pediatrics at Children’s Hospital, and the hospital sponsor Research Days where residents and fellows can present their work. In addition, 15-25 current or recently graduated BCRP house officers submit abstracts of their work to the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) spring meeting each year.

Bob Vinci and friends at the PAS in Washington, DC

 

Though not all resident research is published, much of it is, and often it is of high quality. To illustrate, BCRP residents published 277 papers during the 2.0 years from January 2023 through December 2024, an average of almost 140 publications/year (resident names are in bold):

2024 (154 papers)

2023 (123 papers)

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