Impact of the international collaborative addiction medicine research fellowship on physicians’ future engagement in addiction research

Abstract

Background: To evaluate how an international one-year intensive research training program for addiction medicine physicians contributed to subsequent research involvement and productivity. Methods: We prospectively compared addiction medicine physician fellows admitted to a one-year training program with non-admitted controls, using baseline questionnaire and peer-reviewed publication data. Participants’ publication activity was assessed from fellowship application date onwards using biomedical databases (e.g., PubMed, Embase). Results: Between July 2014 and June 2020, which is six years of cohorts, 56 (39 women) physicians, both fellows (n = 25) and non-admitted applicants (n = 31), were observed and included in the study, contributing 261 person-years of observation. At baseline, in the fellows’ cohort: 76% of participants (19/25) reported past research involvement, 24% (6/25) had one or more advanced graduate degrees (e.g., MPH), and the median number of peer-reviewed, first author publications was one (Interquartile Range [IQR] = 0–2). At baseline, in the controls’ cohort: 84% of participants (26/31) reported past research involvement, 39% (12/31) had one or more advanced graduate degrees, and the median number of peer-reviewed, first author publications was zero. The physicians’ training included internal medicine (n = 8), family medicine (n = 33), psychiatry (n = 5) and others (n = 4). At follow up, there was a significant difference between fellows (n = 25) and controls (n = 31) in total number of publications (Rate Ratio [RR] = 13.09, 95% Confidence Interval [CI], 5.01 − 34.21, p < 0.001), as well as first author publications (RR = 5.59, 95% CI, 2.23 − 14.06, p < 0.001). Conclusion: In the six-year observation period, fellows’ productivity indicates undertaking this fellowship was associated with significant research outputs in comparison to controls, signaling successful training of addiction physicians to help recruit addiction medicine physicians to participate in addiction research.

Keywords:

• Substance-related disorders
• medical education
• program evaluation
• research design
• prospective studies
• addiction medicine research

Acknowledgments

We thank the participants for completing the surveys and staff for assisting with fellowship administration: Elizabeth Yue, Peter Vann, Emily Wagner, Erin Eydt, and Raman Jawanda.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s). The views expressed in this article are those of the authors.

Author contributions

EW and NF contributed through conceptualization of the NEAR study, writing and providing critical feedback, as well as through investigation and supervision. JK contributed to the conceptualization of the research, development of methodology, data curation, manuscript writing and revision, supervision of the research, and project administration. HD contributed to manuscript writing and revision, the provision of study analysis tools, and formal analysis. MAH contributed to project administration, data curation, and manuscript writing and revision. WC and JHS contributed through conceptualization, methodology, and writing and revision.

Additional information

Funding

The study was supported by the US National Institutes of Health [R25DA037756]. This research was undertaken, in part, thanks to funding from the Canada Research Chairs program through a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Inner City Medicine that supports Dr. Evan Wood. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 701698. Dr. Nadia Fairbairn is supported by Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research/St. Paul’s Foundation Scholar Award. Supporting organizations had no further role in the study design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation of data, writing or submission of the manuscript.