Psychiatry at Rhode Island Hospital
MIDAS Project
Post-Doctoral Fellowships
The Methods to Improve Diagnostic Assessment and Services (MIDAS) project
is an ongoing study of diagnosis, assessment, and outcome in routine
clinical practice. Post-doctoral fellows are brought in as diagnostic
interviewers in this project. That is, they are thoroughly trained
in the semi-structured assessment interview and DSM-IV diagnostic
criteria and they conduct the evaluations. It has been our experience
during the past several years that the level of diagnostic precision
required in the MIDAS project is beyond that normally taught in
clinical psychology PhD programs; consequently, the first three
months of the fellowship are devoted to training in our assessment
protocols.
After training at least half of the fellows' time is protected
for purely research/academic/clinical pursuits. Fellows do not
spend more than 25 hours in interviewing and report writing.
Participation in the MIDAS project exposes the fellow to a unique
clinical environment, one in which research has been incorporated
into routine clinical practice. Project participation also exposes
the fellow to an empirical approach to clinical practice.
Fellows are exposed to grant and manuscript writing. Fellows
are strongly encouraged to publish, though it is not required.
The MIDAS project's database of more than 2,000 patients is perhaps
the largest in the world. The database is very broad and can accommodate
most fellows' academic interests. The fellow will become familiar
with this database, and will have it at their disposal to write
papers. Fellows will be first authors on papers that they write.
In addition, fellows have the opportunity to develop their own
projects that can be piggybacked onto the core assessment infrastructure
of the MIDAS project.
There are three required meetings as part of the fellowship.
There is a weekly diagnostic case conference, weekly journal club,
and weekly administrative meeting. There is also a core didactic
series including a grant writing seminar as part of the Brown
fellowship program.
The fellowship is a two-year commitment. We invest about 3 months
of time training interviewers, and expect individuals to be here
for two years. Because of the wide variety of opportunities, there
is flexibility to tailor the fellowship to meet individual interests
and goals. Most fellows stick with the research. However, some
fellows are interested in clinical practice, and phase out from
the diagnostic interviews and take on patients. Some fellows get
involved in pharmaceutical funded treatment trials.
Depending upon one's interest there are also opportunities to
treat patients under the supervision of clinical psychologists
who are part of our practice.
In conclusion, fellows are brought in with the expectation of
increasing their knowledge about diagnostic and assessment research,
are exposed to the realities of real world clinical practice,
and have the opportunity to build a CV from the data base that
has accumulated.
Interested applicants should email Mark Zimmerman (Mzimmerman@Lifespan.org).
Application information and materials are available on the Brown
University department of psychiatry and human behavior site at
http://bms.brown.edu/DPHB.
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