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World Class Research

Research Track Home 2.jpg The University of Massachusetts Medical School ranks 29^th out of 139 US medical schools in NIH funding and boasts its own Nobel Laureate, Lasker award recipient, two members of the National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine and seven Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigators among others.

The Department of Neurology with the recruitment of Robert H. Brown Jr., DPhil, MD, in 2008 has brought an expansion in faculty, facilities and resources and further strengthened the department’s strong commitment to and already considerable history of, excellent and ground breaking clinical and translational research in the neurosciences.

The faculty are actively engaged in basic, translational and clinical research in various neurological diseases including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, frontotemporal dementia, gene therapy in neurodegenerative disease, multiple sclerosis, ischemic hemorrhagic stroke and traumatic brain injury among others

A major goal of the Neurology Residency Program is to encourage scholarly activity and the pursuit of clinical and translational research. The goal of the research track is to provide intense research training, enhanced mentorship, time and resources in order to support a motivated resident(s)’ research endeavors. The resident(s) selected will be provided a continuous, protected block of time with minimal clinical duties in which to devote their full efforts to pursuing a mentored research project. The resident(s) applying to this track should be interested in pursuing a career as a clinician-scientist, including application to research fellowship grants and/or a career development award.

Neurology Timeline Research Residency.png

Research time will be primarily drawn from a resident’s available elective time and grouped into a continuous ~five-month block between the PGY-3 and PGY-4 years. As a consequence, a research track resident will be front-loaded during their PGY-3 year, with multiple inpatient blocks in a row and limited breaks. During the research block, the resident(s) will also be required to take the biostatistics and epidemiology “bootcamp” offered through the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (CTS605A), which meets Tuesdays and Thursdays in July. We also encourage enrollment in the NIH “Introduction to the Principles and Practice of Clinical Research,” available online. During this research block, outpatient clinic will be restructured to a half day per week and the resident will not be on back-up/sick call.

Similar to other tracks, the resident(s) will be required to attend monthly track meetings, held during a noon conference period. These meetings will offer a combination of didactics, working groups/writing groups and the resident will be expected to update the track leaders on progress of their project.

It is expected that resident(s) will complete a peer-reviewed article, presentation at a national meeting, and/or a draft of a grant application. Residents will be expected to present their work in the Spring of the PGY4 at the annual Research Forum. One spot is available for the 2021 research track and you must be a Neurology resident in your PGY-2 (N1) year pursuing a basic, clinical, or translational research project. No prior or formalized research background is necessary. You must have identified a project mentor on faculty at UMass and be eligible from a clincial standpoint.