The Clinical Research Training Program (CRTP), now in its twenty-second year, offers intensive, interdisciplinary postdoctoral training in clinical research to outstanding psychiatrists (MDs) and biological and behavioral scientists (PhDs). Our primary objective is to develop in trainees a sophisticated understanding of the research tools that are relevant to clinical research in psychiatry and in the behavioral sciences. Trainees study experimental design, contemporary statistics, relevant assessments, and computer processing approaches in order to implement their own research. The multidisciplinary nature of the program (e.g., developmental psychology, neurophysiology) emphasizes multiple perspectives in designing, conducting, and interpreting research findings. The program is oriented towards developing clinical investigators who will be ready, by the end of the two-year training period, to conduct their own independent clinical research, or to join already established clinical research teams as junior colleagues. Specific components of the CRTP are: 1) placement of each Fellow in a clinical research training site with an ongoing, funded research program; 2) a weekly interdisciplinary research training seminar attended by Fellows, visiting faculty, and other outstanding researchers in the area; and directed, as well as attended, by the Co-Directors and Associate Director of the Program; 3) attendance at relevant courses within the Harvard University complex and other Boston universities and hospitals. The multiple research areas included in the program build upon the research resources present within the Department of psychiatry at Harvard, and include 44 research training sites. We have added 10 new training sites and 7 new female training faculty. The primary (but not sole) training is through a Fellow's ongoing work with their research preceptor in the relevant clinical research site. All Fellows participate in the program for two consecutive years. Trainees' experience and subsequent career trajectories, reflect the program's success. Trainees have continued to obtain full-time and tenured positions at major universities, have shown a strong publication record, and received numerous research awards including Career Development Awards. We believe that the strength of our program will continue, and that the field of psychiatry will greatly benefit from this rigorous, multidisciplinary training of a new generation of clinical research investigators.
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