The goal of this ongoing training program is to prepare psychologists for careers as clinical researchers. Clinical psychologists are well- trained in psychological theory, research methodology, and quantitative skills and are committed to empirical approaches to clinical science. At the same time, however, we believe that additional preparation is necessary to enable them to work effectively with the more severely ill patients seen in tertiary care settings and to conduct clinically relevant research in a multi-disciplinary setting. In this competing renewal application, we propose to continue an integrated three-year training program that combines the traditional predoctoral internship with two years of postdoctoral training in clinical research. We are requesting support only for the latter two years of the program, that is, clinical research training at the postdoctoral level. Nonetheless, by recruiting graduate students in clinical psychology with demonstrated scholarly interests and accomplishment at the level of the predoctoral internship, we believe we are in a unique position to identify and prepare talented young psychologists for academic careers.
The specific aims of training are to provide trainees with 1) intensive clinical experience (during the internship) in the management of a broad spectrum of patients seen in an academic medical center; 2) a predoctoral and postdoctoral curriculum that enhances conceptual and practical skills in clinical research, including instruction in the responsible conduct of research; and 3) an intensive research apprenticeship (at the postdoctoral level) with an established clinical investigator and mentor. The overall goal is to promote the career development of clinical psychologists who are capable of pursuing independent research initiatives and opportunities for individual research funding. Our training site (the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh) serves a heterogeneous urban population; throughout the program, we stress the development of sensitivity to racial, ethnic, and social differences.
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