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I am Joan Camprodon, a PGY2 resident in the Research Concentration Option. I was born in Barcelona, Spain and did most of my Medical School training there. I finished my last year of Med School in Berlin, Germany, and stayed for an extra year after graduation doing research with fMRI. After Berlin I came to Boston, where I did a PhD in Neuroscience and a Master in Public Health. I continued for almost 2 more years doing research with a junior faculty position in Neurology, until I entered the Psychiatry residency program at MGH/McLean. My research uses brain stimulation and functional neuroimaging to explore issues related to connectivity and plasticity in Cognitive Neuroscience and Translational Neuropsychiatry. Clinically, I am interested in Neuropsychiatry and the interface between Psychiatry and Neurology. I am also interested in global mental health and medical humanities, and in a number of other things not at all related to the clinical neurosciences.
Some of my colleagues will be writing about general aspects of the residency, life in Boston, etc. so I will focus on how research and scientific training is incorporated in our program. Last year our residency started a Research Concentration Option (RCO), which aims to train clinician-investigators and allows for a good amount of protected time for science. The intern year is majorly devoted to developing clinical skills, but while in the Psychiatry rotations we have 1 or 2 afternoons per week to get to know the faculty and labs at MGH, McLean or the wider Harvard community, and start planning or begin the work we want to develop. During PGY2 we have 3 months of protected time, during which we continue to attend Wednesday afternoon didactics, have clinic and supervision half a day per week and take call at McLean. The PGY3 year has 4 amazing months in the Psychiatry consult service, and in the remaining 8 months, 2 days a week can be devoted to research. PGY4 is almost entirely used for electives, and the whole year can basically be used for research.
This is a schematic overview of the RCO. As you can see it provides increasing amounts of time you can use for science and it is a good introduction to having a mixed clinical-research schedule. The breath of expertise that can be found in our system amazes me constantly. From basic research to translational neuroscience to clinical trials to policy analysis to transcultural and anthropological approaches, we have the opportunity to work with outstanding researchers and resources, and you will find the scientific community in both departments to be very accessible and interested. Also, one of the many aspects of this program that I found very attractive is that research here is not at the expense of clinical training. You will have the best researchers available as mentors and time protected to learn and conduct scientific projects, but this will be matched with an intense and very academic clinical training experience. |
